The Baigong pipes are one of the greatest mysteries of the ancient world. They can be found inside a badly-eroded pyramid standing on top of Mount Baigong in the Qinghai Province of northwestern China. The collapsing pyramid once had triangular entrances on all three sides but over time, two of them caved in and are currently out of reach. The one that remains goes deep inside the mountain. Continue reading
Recently I was reading an article on AltHealthWorks.com about a fake rice being produced in China. The rice is being made out of plastic believe it or not and no one is doing anything about it. Naturally, as a health advocate and researcher of food and how food is processed I thought to myself, this is going WAY too far. Continue reading
If you’re planning on traveling to China, we have two pieces of advice:
Failing to heed the first tip there could get you thrown in jail (or, as Man Group’s China chief Li Yifei calls it, sent on a “short vacation”).
The consequences of failing to follow the second piece of advice above could be, how should we put this… explosive.
Continue reading
At least 36 people were trampled to death on New Year’s Eve and more were injured when a stampede broke out before midnight on a crowded street in downtown Shanghai’s historic Bund area. Continue reading
China has been quietly taking steps to encircle the United States by arming western hemisphere states, seeking closer military, economic, and diplomatic ties to U.S. neighbors, and sailing warships into U.S. maritime zones.
The strategy is a Chinese version of what Beijing has charged is a U.S. strategy designed to encircle and “contain” China. It is also directed at countering the Obama administration’s new strategy called the pivot to Asia. The pivot calls for closer economic, diplomatic, and military ties to Asian states that are increasingly concerned about Chinese encroachment throughout that region.
Read more:
Obama urged to ‘punch’ China
A leading U.S. manufacturing group on Monday called on President Obama to take a tough line on China when he holds his first summit with new Chinese President Xi Jinping at the end of the week in California.
Even as Chinese companies are stepping up their acquisitions in the American market, Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), suggested the Obama administration should “punch back hard” against the Chinese for recent national security and economic intrusions of U.S. military and business targets.
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/3/obama-urged-to-punch-china/#ixzz2VobPW0yR
Japanese troops will converge on California’s southern coast in the next two weeks as part of a military exercise with U.S. troops aimed at improving that country’s amphibious attack abilities.
U.S. and Japanese military officials said the unprecedented training, led by U.S. Marines and sailors, will help Japan’s Self-Defense Force operate in stronger coordination with the United States, its main ally, and better respond to crises such as natural disasters.
China may see it differently, however, given the tensions between Tokyo and Beijing over a long-running dispute concerning islands claimed by both in the East China Sea.
“It’s another dot that the Chinese will connect to show this significant expanding military cooperation,” said Tai Ming Cheung, an analyst of Chinese and East Asian security affairs and director of the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation at the University of California, San Diego.
China has, for the first time, attempted to spell out its strategy — and plans — to secure its interests in the Indian Ocean in its first “blue book” on the region, released here on Saturday.
The blue book makes a case for China to deepen its economic engagements with the Indian Ocean Region’s (IOR) littoral states, but stresses that Beijing’s interests will be driven by commercial — rather than military — objectives.
However, it warns that the Indian Ocean could end up “as an ocean of conflict and trouble” if countries like India, the U.S. and China failed to engage with each other more constructively as their interests begin to overlap.
Nicaragua canal: Will China build rival to Panama Canal?
With NSA Leaker in Hong Kong, US Looks to Blame China
http://news.antiwar.com/2013/06/09/with-nsa-leaker-in-hong-kong-us-looks-to-blame-china/
RT @tomphillipsin: Staff @ Hong Kong’s Mira hotel just told me #snowden was def there, checked out today, won’t say what time
https://twitter.com/TomLasseter
Could Hong Kong shelter Edward Snowden?
Mr Snowden said he chose to hide in Hong Kong because of it’s “strong tradition of free speech”
Edward Snowden, who has identified himself as the source of leaks about US surveillance programmes, is believed to be holed up in a hotel in Hong Kong.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-22837599#TWEET784322
Fire Dog Lake’s Kevin Gosztola notes:
Today US military operations are involved in scores of countries across all the five continents. The US military is the world’s largest landlord, with significant military facilities in nations around the world, and with a significant presence in Bahrain, Djibouti,Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Kyrgyzstan, in addition to long-established bases in Germany, Japan, South Korea, Italy, and the UK. Some of these are vast, such as the Al Udeid Air Force Base in Qatar, the forward headquarters of the United States Central Command, which has recently been expanded to accommodate up to 10,000 troops and 120 aircraft.
Citing a page at US Central Command’s (CENTCOM) website, they highlight the “areas of responsibility” publicly listed:
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) is active in 20 countries across the Middle Eastern region, and is actively ramping-up military training, counterterrorism programs, logistical support, and funding to the military in various nations. At this point, the US has some kind of military presence in Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, U.A.E., Uzbekistan, and Yemen.
US Africa Command (AFRICOM), according to the paper, “supports military-to-military relationships with 54 African nations.”
[Gosztola points out that the U.S. military is also conducting operations of one kind or another in Syrian, Jordan, South Sudan, Kosovo, Libya, Yemen, the Congo, Uganda, Mali, Niger and other countries.]
Altogether, that makes 74 nations where the US is fighting or “helping” some force in some proxy struggle that has been deemed beneficial by the nation’s masters of war.
***
A Congressional Research Service (CRS) provides an accounting of all the publicly acknowledged deployments of US military forces
But those are just the public operations.
Gosztola notes that the covert operations are uncountable:
Beyond that, there are Special Operations forces in countries. Jeremy Scahill in Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield, writes, “By mid-2010, the Obama administration had increased the presence of Special Operations forces from sixty countries to seventy-five countries.
***
Scahill also reports, based on his own “well-placed special operations sources”:
…[A]mong the countries where [Joint Special Operations Command] teams had been deployed under the Obama administration were: Iran, Georgia, Ukraine, Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador, Peru, Yemen, Pakistan (including in Baluchistan) and the Philippines. These teams also at times deployed in Turkey, Belgium, France and Spain. JSOC was also supporting US Drug Enforcement Agency operations in Colombia and Mexico…
Since President Barack Obama has been willing to give the go ahead to operations that President George W. Bush would not have approved, operations have been much more aggressive and, presumably, JSOC has been able to fan out and work in way more countries than ever expected.
Global assassinations have been embraced by the current administration, opening the door to night raids, drone strikes, missile attacks where cluster bombs are used, etc. Each of these operations, as witnessed or experienced by the civilian populations of countries, potentially inflame and increase the number of areas in the world where there are conflict zones.
***
The world is literally a battlefield with conflicts being waged by the US (or with the “help” of the US). And, no country is off-limits to US military forces.
Of course, JSOC is not accountable to Congress … let alone the public:
JSOC operates outside the confines of the traditional military and even beyond what the CIA is able to do.
***
But it goes well beyond the war zones. In concert with the Executive’s new claims on extra-judicial assassinations via drone strikes, even if the target is an American citizen, JSOC goes around the world murdering suspects without the oversight of a judge or, god forbid, granting those unfortunate souls the right to defend themselves in court against secret, evidence-less government decrees about their guilt. As Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh said at a speaking event in 2009:
Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on.
***
There are legal restrictions on what the CIA can do in terms of covert operations. There has to be a finding, the president has to notify at least the “Gang of Eight” [leaders of the intelligence oversight committees] in Congress. JSOC doesn’t have to do any of that. There is very little accountability for their actions. What’s weird is that many in congress who’d be very sensitive to CIA operations almost treat JSOC as an entity that doesn’t have to submit to oversight. It’s almost like this is the president’s private army, we’ll let the president do what he needs to do.
BEIJING: A day after asking Japan to stop encroaching its territory, Chinese military on Wednesday for the first time deployed its naval ships to patrol the islands disputed with Tokyo in the East China Sea.
This is the first time in recent months China deployed its naval vessels for patrols in the islands waters replacing the marine surveillance vessels, even though some naval ships were seen in the waters earlier.
A two-vessel fleet of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy patrolled the territorial waters surrounding the Diaoyu islands this morning, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
China calls the islands Diaoyu while Japan refers to them Senkakus, which were administered by Tokyo till last September after which China started challenging the Japanese hold on the islets.
Significantly they also conducted open-sea offencive and defencive training as well as exercises of intercepting and searching illegal vessels in the western Pacific Ocean on Sunday and Monday, it said.
Missile destroyer Lanzhou and missile frigate Hengshui, both from the Navy’s Nanhai Fleet, entered the sea area via the Miyako Strait on Tuesday night, the report said.
Today’s patrol by the Nanhai fleet ships came after vessels from the PLA Navy’s Beihai Fleet and Donghai Fleet had previously patrolled the Diaoyu Islands waters.
Yesterday Chinese Defence Ministry spokesperson Yang Yujun asked Japan to stop encroaching the country’s territory asserting it has the capability and determination to safeguard them.
“What is important now is for Japan to stop activities that undermine China’s territorial sovereignty and take actions to ensure the issue resolved,” he said while release a white paper on the Chinese military.
The paper named Japan as “trouble maker” while accusing US of making situation “tenser” by forging alliances in Asia.
The yuan reached a record high yesterday as the central bank fixed its midpoint against the US dollar at the strongest level ever.
That sparked anticipation of further appreciation this year and stoked inflationary pressure on the mainland and Hong Kong.
The People’s Bank of China set the midpoint at 6.2506 yuan per US dollar - up from the fixing of 6.2578 on Thursday - ahead of a visit by US Secretary of State John Kerry to Asia. The yuan jumped to 79.775 Hong Kong dollars per 100 yuan, just near the record of 79.729 on Wednesday.
China often allows the yuan to appreciate faster before visits by officials from Western countries, who usually push for exchange rate liberalisation.
However, the yuan is set to strengthen this year. Inflows of capital are expected to generate higher demand for the yuan than last year as the mainland economy recovers, economists said.
“In 2013 we’ll see greater risks of capital inflows to China, rather than two-way movements in the yuan exchange rate or capital outflows as last year,” said Chang Jian, an economist at Barclays Capital. Barclays expects the yuan to strengthen 2 per cent against the greenback this year, after considering China’s intention to protect exporters in the still shaky economic recovery.
The yuan rate in the spot market touched 6.1903 per dollar yesterday, the highest since 1994. The yuan spot rate has risen 0.6 per cent so far this year, after hitting highs in the past couple of weeks.
Economists at Standard Chartered forecast the spot rate for yuan would reach 6.18 by the end of June and 6.10 by the end of this year. They said China was unlikely to follow Japan in depreciating its currency, as Japanese exporters are not its major competitors.
Nathan Chow, a DBS Bank economist, expects the strengthening of the yuan to continue to put pressure on inflation in Hong Kong because the city’s currency is pegged to the US dollar.
“The inflationary pressure caused by the yuan appreciation is inevitable, as Hong Kong imports a variety of goods, such as food and medical supplies, from the mainland,” Chow said.
A 1 per cent rise in the yuan would result in a 0.05 percentage point increase in Hong Kong’s consumer inflation, the Monetary Authority says.
http://www.scmp.com/news/article/1213468/yuan-reaches-record-high-against-us-dollar
(DailyMail) -North Korea was today warned it faced fresh sanctions if it went ahead with a predicted missile test in the escalating nuclear stand-off with its neighbours and their Western allies.
Following a meeting of the G8 nations in London, foreign ministers said they had committed themselves to ‘further significant measures’ if the test was carried out.
It came on another tense day on the Korean peninsula, where images of four female soldiers in heels and Soviet-style hats were released in the latest act of bravado from madman dictator Kim Jong Un.
They were accompanied by a fresh round of rhetoric by the pariah state which claims it had ‘powerful striking means’ on standby for a launch.
The official statement is the latest in a torrent of warlike threats seen outside Pyongyang as an effort to raise fears and pressure Seoul and Washington into changing their North Korea policy.
Scroll down for video
Femme fatales: Female North Korean soldiers patrol along the banks of Yalu River, near the town of Sinuiju, as the world remained on high alert for a North Korean missile launch
Frontline females: Women are believed to represent more than 10 per cent of the entire North Korean People’s Army, according to visitors to the state
The eyes of the world remain focused on the secretive nation after South Korea warned that the prospect of a missile attack was ‘considerably high’
The U.S. is on standby to intercept any missile fired and warned North Korea it was ‘skating very close to a dangerous line’ after it emerged the communist state’s weapons system was ‘fuelled and ready to launch’.
In London, William Hague hosted counterparts from G8 nations including the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia amid fears the escalating tensions could trigger a nuclear war.
But it was the image of a group of female soldiers patrolling along the Yalu River at the town of Sinuiju that triggered fresh interest today.
With the ladies: North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un with female members of the Korean People’s Army Unit 4302 in an undated picture. Many of the artillery units along the coasts are manned with women
Goose-stepping girls: Propaganda songs have been written to attract more women into the coastal artillery units and women fighters now guard nearly all tunnels and bridges (file picture)
Trend-setter: The image of women in uniform sparked memories of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s distinctive band of female bodyguards, who wore sunglasses and headdresses and knee-boots
The town is the biggest border crossing between North Korea and China and has been closed to tourist groups, but business travel was still allowed.
The image of women in uniform sparked memories of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s distinctive band of female bodyguards, who wore sunglasses and headdresses and knee-boots.
Women are believed to represent more than 10 per cent of the entire North Korean People’s Army, according to visitors to the state, with many of the artillery units along the coasts manned with women.
Propaganda songs have been written to attract more women into the coastal artillery units and women fighters now guard nearly all tunnels and bridges.
Kim Ok-Hee, 28, a former instructor at a training camp described in a 2007 interview how the state relies heavily on its female soldiers.
Final preparations: U.S. soldiers check their tank at a military training field near Seoul, South Korea as the Obama administration warned North Korea it is skating a ‘dangerous line’ with its proposed missile launch
Tinkering with the tanks: The U.S. is preparing to intercept any missile after it emerged the communist state’s weapons system was ‘fuelled and ready to launch’
Kim served at the 4.25 boot camp, a mechanised division whose mission is to guard the coasts of South and North Pyongan Provinces against the infiltration by enemy paratroopers during a crisis.
The boot camp had five regiments and each regiment had a women infantry battalion consisting of tanks and artilleries, she said.
But even in North Korea’s supposedly egalitarian society, women with good looks or family influence are deployed at more desirable postings, such as medical units, while others end up in artillery units, she said.
Choi Young-Il, 38, who served as a maintenance mechanic in the North Korean air force, said in the same interview that women began to be deployed in his units around 1998.
‘In my unit, all the pilots for IL-28 bombers were women and many women were pilots for the AN-2, which Kim Jong-Il boasted as a more deadly weapon than nuclear bombs,’ Choi said.
Staying sharp: A U.S. Air Force F-16 fighter jet takes off from a runway during a military exercise at the Osan U.S. Air Base in Osan, South Korea
Weapons ar the ready: South Korean soldiers stand guard at an observation post near the demilitarised zone which separates the two Koreas in Paju, north of Seoul
Meanwhile, one cyber expert warned today that it may be the escalating battles between the two Koreas over the internet that triggers full-scale warfare in the real world.
Jarno Limnell, doctor in military science and director of cyber-security for Stonesoft, based in Finland, said a ‘cyber war arms race’ is now in operation on the peninsula.
He told The Huffington Post: ‘Actions in the cyber world easily escalate to warfare or threats of war as the situation on the Korean peninsula demonstrates.’
He spoke out after South Korea yesterday accused the North of orchestrating a cyber attack that shut down about 32,000 computers and servers at South Korean broadcasters and banks.
And with hacking group Anonymous now targeting Kim Jong Un’s regime and increasingly powerful cyber weapons emerging, Limnell warned the worst is yet to come.
He said: ‘The side effects and results of actions in the cyber world are difficult to estimate and manage, which makes them even more dangerous.
‘Cyber activities play a significant role in the rapidly escalating chain of events – which, in the worst case, may lead to large-scale warfare.’
Unrest: Members of the Korea Freedom Federation chant slogans during a rally for North Korea to re-start operations at the joint Kaesong Industrial Complex as the country remained on high alert
Crisis: Members of the Korea Freedom Federation were also protesting against North Korea’s warmongering
At the G8 meeting today, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov was also expected to come under pressure over Moscow’s support for Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria.
Other topics covered are likely to include Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Mr Hague is due to hold a press conference when the session concludes this afternoon.
Germany’s foreign minister said North Korea’s provocations were escalating a tense situation and this ‘war rhetoric needs to end’.
Speaking on the sidelines of the G-8 foreign ministers’ meeting in London, Guido Westerwelle said all of the group’s ministers shared his conviction.
‘This war rhetoric is not in any way acceptable and the G-8 has a united position on this,’ he said.
The two-day talks among eight world powers are expected to focus on North Korea and the civil war in Syria.
They will also get some celebrity wattage from an expected appearance by a U.N. special envoy for refugees, Angelina Jolie, who has teamed up with U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague to combat sexual violence in war.
Jolie and the U.N. special representative on sexual violence in conflict, Zanab Bangora, will meet with G-8 foreign ministers and issue a statement.
Still finding time to relax: North Korean military, along with foreign military attaches from Russia, China, and Iran watch a dance performance as they visit the Pyongyang Folk Park on the outskirts of the capital
Chilling out: North Korean soldiers can afford a laugh despite the escalating missile crisis
North Korea’s missile, dubbed the Musudan after the name of the village where North Korea has a launch pad, could reach the U.S. territory of Guam and US military installations in Japan.
Foreign minister Yun Byung-se said South Korea had asked China and Russia to intercede with the North to ease tension that has mounted since the UN Security Council slapped fresh sanctions on Pyongyang after a nuclear arms test in February.
A test-fire of the Musudan missile would violate UN resolutions banning North Korea from nuclear and missile activity, and escalate tensions with the US, South Korea and Japan.
Mr Yun said: ‘According to intelligence obtained by our side and the US, the possibility of a missile launch by North Korea is very high.’
US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said North Korea was skating close to a ‘dangerous line’, while Japan’s defence minister Itsunori Onodera said his nation was on ‘high alert’.
North Korean officials have not announced plans to launch a missile, but have urged tourists in South Korea to take cover, warning that a nuclear war is imminent. However, most diplomats and foreign residents have dismissed this.
There were also reports that North Korea’s army is split over leader Kim Jong-un’s threats to wage an all-out war with the West.
The madman dictator is said to be facing an insurgency from within his own military despite threatening to launch missiles that could reach Japan.
As the peninsula edges ever closer to war, there were reports that the military is split over the young dictator’s aggression, which may stem from a desire to rein in his discontented but powerful generals.
Urgent talks: British Foreign Secretary William Hague (right) walks with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry ahead of a G8 meeting which will focus on the developing crisis in North Korea
Crisis: William Hague is hosting counterparts of the G8 from the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia amid fears the escalating tensions could trigger a nuclear war
First Lieutenant Kim, 42, said he had been forced to flee North Korea after he murdered a rival officer as factions in his unit vied for control.
‘I killed a three-star company commander, the same rank as me,’ he said. ‘He was the head of the faction supporting Kim Jong-un. There were two fights. In the first fight, they surrounded us and arrested a lot of people.
‘But I got away and gathered others from the barracks. We found them and I shot the commander. After that, I escaped.’
The Daily Telegraph reported that the battles occurred at the end of 2011, shortly before Kim Jong-un succeeded his father as the ‘supreme commander’ of the 1.2million-strong Korean People’s Army.
He said there may have been a violent disagreement between two major departments over army reconnaissance last year, possibly alarming the 30-year-old and spurring him on to tighten his grip on power.
Zone of terror: Maps and diagrams detail the potential effective range and threat represented by several North Korean missile systems
At the ready: Japanese forces set up Patriot anti-missile defence systems in Tokyo today as the threat level over a North Korea missile launch was raised to ‘vital’
Primed: Japan mobilised its tropps as it was claimed by U.S. and South Korean sources that at least one previously untested missile with a 3,000km (2,000-mile) range is fuelled and ready for launch
This view is echoed by North Korean defector Kim Hyun-hee, who today told an Australian broadcaster: ‘Kim Jong-un is too young and too inexperienced. He’s struggling to gain complete control over the military and to win their loyalty.’
South Korea fears Pyongyang could launch up to three different types of missiles. One unnamed official told the Yonhap news agency: ‘There are clear signs that the North could simultaneously fire off Musudan, Scud and Nodong missiles.’
In rare cases, foreigners have heeded Pyongyang’s warnings and fled Seoul, despite repeated attempts by analysts to play down Pyongyang’s aggressive rhetoric.
‘One of my friends left for the airport this morning,’ said Zoe Chau, a hotel receptionist from Hong Kong told North Korea News. ‘She felt Seoul was too close to the action so bought a ticket to Jeju Island, she’s there now.’
A South Korean vehicle - complete with luggage taped to the roof - and workers return from the Kaesong industrial complex, a joint business zone operated by both Koreas
Escape: A car loaded with boxes arrives in South Korea from the Kaesong joint industrial complex
North Koreans who fled the country say the young dictator wishes to tighten his precarious grip on power
The U.S. and South Korea believe dictator Kim Jong-un may test fire a nuclear-capable missile with a 3,000km (2,000-mile) range at any time and without issuing a standard notice to commercial aviation and maritime shipping so they can avoid the area.
South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-Se told a parliamentary hearing: ‘According to intelligence obtained by our side and the U.S., the possibility of a missile launch by North Korea is very high.’
North Korea, he added, could launch a Musudan missile ‘at any time from now’.
A border crossing between North Korea and China was closed to tourist groups as the Korean peninsula edged closer to nuclear war.
The Obama administration believes North Korea will likely test one of its mobile ballistic missiles imminently after the most recent intelligence showed Pyongyang had probably completed its launch preparations.
A map showing North Korea missile ranges. The Pentagon has announced it is deploying missile defense systems to the U.S. base in Guam and missile defense ships to sea between Japan and the rogue nation
South Korean soldiers keep watch on North Korea through binoculars from an observation post near the border village of Panmunjom
Leave, now: Foreign tourists pose for a picture in Seoul. North Korea urged foreigners in South Korea to evacuate
Having threatened to bomb the United States and warned foreigners to leave South Korea due to an impending thermonuclear war, North Korea said today it was readying for a marathon to celebrate its founder’s birthday.
The North’s state news agency said a big contingent of foreign runners was expected from countries including Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Ethiopia as well as 600 North Koreans at the April 14 race.
‘I think enthusiasm for the upcoming tournament is running high among local marathoners and their coaches as never before,’ the KCNA news agency cited Ham Chang-hyok of the Sports Ministry as saying.
This is the 26th time the Mangyongdae Prize International Marathon has been held.
But a U.S. official said there was no guarantee North Korea would give any warning of its launch to civilians.
‘We hope they issue a notification, but at this point we don’t expect it. We are working on the assumption they won’t,’ the unnamed official told CNN.
In anticipation, the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces have raised their alert level to Watchcon 2 - a vital threat - to increase surveillance monitoring, Yonhap news agency quoted a senior military official as saying.
Watchcon 4 is in effect during normal peacetime, while Watchcon 3 reflects indications of an important threat. Watchcon 1 is used in wartime.
U.S. defenses could intercept a ballistic missile launched by North Korea if it decides to strike, said Admiral Samuel Locklear, the top American military commander in the Pacific.
Locklear told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he was confident that the U.S. military can thwart North Korea if it chooses to act.
Foreign minister Yun said he was coordinating with China and Russia ‘to make efforts to persuade North Korea to change its attitude’.
China is North Korea’s sole major ally, although its influence over Pyongyang is open to question and Beijing has, in any event, backed the new sanctions.
Moscow backed North Korea in Soviet times, though its influence has waned unquestionably.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman issued a fresh appeal for restraint on the Korean peninsula and said nothing about any possible effort to bring about a change in the North’s policy.
A North Korean man passes by roadside propaganda depicting a soldier killing a U.S. soldier in Pyongyang, North Korea today. The poster reads in Korean ‘Life or Death Battle. Merciless Punishment to U.S. Imperialists and Puppet Traitors’
Business as usual: A North Korean man drives a small tractor in central Pyongyang
Patricia Lewis, Research Director at the London-based think tank Chatham House, said that strictly on the basis of the North’s vast conventional forces, caution was required.
‘The conventional military capabilities of North Korea are all too real and all too close to Seoul,’ she wrote in a paper. ‘Any incursion could escalate involving the U.S. and Japan, China, perhaps Russia and others.’
Pyongyang has tested short-range Scud missiles. The longer-range Musudan and Nodong missiles are an unknown quantity.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said during a visit to Rome that he had spoken to the Chinese leadership to try to calm tensions, and would discuss the issue with US President Barack Obama tomorrow.
‘The current level of tension is very dangerous, a small incident caused by miscalculation or misjudgement may create an uncontrollable situation,’ Ban said.
Yesterday, North Korea warned all foreigners to evacuate South Korea yesterday because the two countries are on the verge of a nuclear war - as Japan set up a huge new anti-missile system in Tokyo.
In a further sign of rising nuclear tensions, a key border crossing between North Korea and China has been closed to tourist groups, a Chinese official said Wednesday.
Keeping watch: A North Korean patrol boat cruises the Yalu River after a key border crossing between North Korea and China was closed to tourist groups as nuclear tensions mounted
An official at the Dandong Border Office, who declined to give his name, told AFP: ‘Travel agencies are not allowed to take tourist groups to go there, since the North Korean government is now asking foreign people to leave. As far as I know, business people can enter and leave North Korea freely.’
A woman surnamed Wu at a travel agency in the town said municipal authorities told it not to take tours into North Korea.
‘It was absolutely North Korea’s (decision) because the travel bureau told us “North Korea is now no longer allowing tour groups to be taken in”,’ the woman told 9 News World.
Western tour operators ‘Koryo Tours’ and ‘Young Pioneer Tours’ both said today that there were no plans to cancel any of their forthcoming tours, making it unclear if the suspension applied to everyone.
‘We have a group in the county at the moment led by Dan, one of our guides, and he phoned in today on his mobile saying everything is as normal as it ever is,’ Nick Bonner of Koryo Tours wrote on the tour group’s Facebook page.
Meanwhile the United Kingdom’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office continues to say that travel to North Korea remains unaffected by the latest tensions.
It said: ‘Our overall assessment is that there is currently no immediate increased risk or danger to those living in or travelling to the DPRK as a result of these statements.’
Dandong-based Explore North Korea published a notification last night telling customers that all tours to the DPRK would be cancelled until further notice.
Following a nearly two hour long meeting with North Korean tour officials, the Chinese company, which normally brings western visitors to North Korea, posted an advisory adding that tours would only be resumed once official confirmation was provided by North Korea, reports NK News.
Leonid Petrov, a researcher at the Australian National University in Canberra, told NK News that the move showed a ‘logical’ and ‘consistent’ approach to escalating a feeling of crisis on the peninsula.
He said: ‘War zones are incompatible with joint industrial parks, travel groups or even with foreign embassies. Pyongyang wants to convince the world that Korea will soon be engulfed in the flames of nuclear inferno.
‘The scary truth is that this can really happen regardless of who makes the first shot. ‘China is North Korea’s sole major ally and the provider of the vast majority of its trade and aid, with most of the business passing through Dandong.’
The rising tensions come just days before the April 15 birthday of North Korea’s founder, historically a time when it seeks to draw the world’s attention with dramatic displays of military power.
In Pyongyang, however, the focus today was less on preparing for war and more on beautifying the city ahead of the nation’s biggest holiday.
Soldiers hammered away on construction projects, gardeners got down on their knees to plant flowers and trees, and students marched off to school, belying a sense that tensions on the Korean Peninsula have reached their highest point since the Korean War ended nearly 60 years ago.
Last year, the days surrounding the centennial of the birth of Kim Sung-il, grandfather of the current ruler, was marked by parades of tanks, goose-stepping soldiers and missiles, as well as the failed launch of a satellite-carrying rocket widely believed by the U.S. and its allies in the West to be a test of ballistic missile capabilities.
Mobilising: South Korean soldiers ride a military truck on the road leading to North Korea at a military checkpoint in the border city of Paju
Threat level raised: A South Korean military vehicle drives past barricades on the road leading to North Korea, which is expecting to launch a missile ‘at any time’
On standby: South Korean soldiers ride a military truck on the road leading to North Korea as the co-ordinated military surveillance status was upgraded
A subsequent test in December went off successfully, and that was followed by the country’s third underground nuclear test on Feb. 12 this year, a step toward mastering the technology for mounting an atomic bomb on a missile.
The resulting U.N. sanctions have been met with an unending string of threats and provocations from the North, raising tensions on the peninsula to their highest point since the end of the Korean War in 1953, according to some experts.
The moves are seen as an attempt by North Korea to scare foreigners into pressing their governments to pressure Washington and Seoul to avert a conflict, and boost the militaristic credentials of its young and relatively untested leader, Kim Jong-un.
North Korean government agents were behind a March cyber attack that shut down about 32,000 computers and servers at South Korean broadcasters and banks, an investigation has found.
An official at South Korea’s internet security agency, Chun Kil-soo, told reporters Wednesday that the attack was similar to past North Korean hacking. He said investigators believe that six computers in North Korea were used to access South Korean servers using more than 1,000 IP addresses overseas.
The accusation comes as tensions run high on the Korean Peninsula, with North Korea delivering increasingly belligerent rhetoric in anger over UN sanctions and US-South Korean military drills.
On Tuesday, the North said a nuclear war is imminent and recommended that foreigners in South Korea evacuate to safe places.
Pyongyang advised foreign embassies to consider evacuating their citizens by Wednesday, and warned tourists in South Korea to leave Seoul in case of an outbreak of war.
However, most diplomats and foreign residents appeared to be staying put.
In Seoul, the defense ministry official said the North appeared prepared to carry out a missile launch at any time. He spoke on condition of anonymity, saying he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media.
He said Pyongyang’s military is capable of conducting multiple missile launches involving Scud and medium-range Rodong missiles, as well as a missile transported to the east coast recently. He refused to say how Seoul obtained the information.
Admiral Samuel Locklear, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington yesterday that he concurred with an assessment by Senator John McCain, R-Ariz., calling the tension between North Korea and the West the worst since the end of the Korean War.
‘The continued advancement of the North’s nuclear and missile programs, its conventional force posture, and its willingness to resort to asymmetric actions as a tool of coercive diplomacy creates an environment marked by the potential for miscalculation,’ Locklear told the panel.
He said the U.S. military and its allies would be ready if North Korea tries to strike.
Despite such tidings of war, the people of Pyongyang went about their daily lives.
Associated Press journalists in the North Korean capital saw soldiers wearing hard hats rumbling past in the back of a truck as they prepared for another day’s work doing construction.
In recent years, military personnel have been pressed into helping build the many urban renewal projects that have been prioritised since Kim Jong-un came to power in December 2011.
Thousands of North Koreans dance in Pyongyang in celebration of their former leader Kim Jong-Il
Event came as Pyongyang warned foreigners to leave the South, saying two Koreas are on verge of civil war
In a sign they have been diverted away from preparing for conventional warfare, they are commonly referred to as ‘soldier-builders’ and are also called upon to help plant and harvest rice and other crops in a nation that suffers chronically from food shortages.
North Korea sporadically holds civil air raid drills during which citizens practice blacking out their windows and seeking shelter. But no such drills have been held in recent months, local residents said.
‘I’m not at all worried. We have confidence in our young marshal’ Kim Jong-un, a cleaning lady at the Koryo Hotel said as she made up a guest’s bed. ‘The rest of the world can just squawk all they want but we have confidence in his leadership.
‘We are resolved to stay and defend him until the end,’ she said. ‘It may be hard for the rest of the world to understand, and those who are worried are welcome to leave,’ she said in the typical nationalistic style that North Koreans use while talking to foreigners.
But there was no sign of an exodus of foreigners from Seoul or Pyongyang.
Britain and other governments with embassies in Pyongyang said they had no immediate plans to withdraw but would continue assessing the situation.
North Korea has been escalating tensions with the U.S. and South Korea, its wartime foes, for months.
North Korean children carrying brooms help tidy up the area around bronze statues of the late leaders
The tightened U.N. sanctions that followed the nuclear test drew the ire of North Korea, which accused Washington and Seoul of leading the campaign against it.
Annual U.S.-South Korean military drills south of the border have further incensed Pyongyang, which sees them as practice for an invasion.
Last week, Kim Jong-un enshrined the pursuit of nuclear weapons - which the North characterizes as a defense against the U.S. - as a national goal, along with improving the economy. North Korea also declared it would restart a mothballed nuclear complex.
The Musudan, also known as the Nodong-B or the Taepodong-X, is an intermediate-range ballistic missile. It has a range of 3,000 kilometres (1,800 miles) - that would make Japan and South Korea potential targets, but little is known about the missile’s accuracy.
The KN-08 is an 18-metre long missile that North Korea claims has a range of 10,000 miles, putting the U.S. in range, but military experts believe 6,000 miles is more realistic.
It is a concern as it is road-mobile and easy to hide.
North Korea isn’t thought to have nuclear-armed missiles that can hit the United States and, despite threats, is extremely unlikely to launch a direct attack on Seoul or its U.S. ally, knowing that military retaliation would threaten the leadership’s survival.
This week the Pentagon deployed two Aegis-equipped missile defense ships to operate off the Korean peninsula.
Citing the tensions with Seoul, North Korea on Monday pulled more than 50,000 workers from the Kaesong industrial park, which combines South Korean technology and know-how with cheap North Korean labor.
It was the first time that production was stopped at the decade-old factory park, the only remaining symbol of economic co-operation between the Koreas.
Pyongyang also has moved to its eastern seaboard what is believed by U.S. and South Korean intelligence to be a mid-range missile capable of hitting targets in Japan, such as the U.S. military installations on that country’s main island.
Another possibility is that Pyongyang would launch such a missile into the sea as a display of its military prowess.
The United States and South Korea have raised their defense postures, as has Japan, which deployed PAC-3 missile interceptors in key locations around Tokyo. And Locklear said the U.S. military would be ready to strike back if provoked.
One historian, James Person, noted that it isn’t the first time North Korea has warned foreign embassies to prepare for a U.S. attack.
He said that in 1968, following North Korea’s seizure of an American ship, the USS Pueblo, Pyongyang persistently advised foreign diplomats to prepare for a U.S. counterattack.
Cables from the Romanian mission in Pyongyang showed embassies were instructed to build anti-air bunkers ‘to protect foreigners against air attacks,’ he said.
The cables were obtained and posted online by the Wilson Center’s North Korea International Documentation Project.
Young North Korean workers and students climb stairs to the base of bronze statues of the late leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il during an event to pledge loyalty to the country in Pyongyang
Person called it one of North Korea’s first forays into what he dubs ‘military adventurism.’
‘In 1968, there was some concern there would be an attack, but (the North Koreans) certainly were building it up to be more than it was in hopes of getting more assistance from their allies at the time,’ Person said by phone from Alexandria, Virginia.
‘I think much of it was hot air then. Today, I think again it’s more hot air,’ he said. ‘The idea is to scare people into pressuring the United States to return to negotiations with North Korea. That’s the bottom line.’
South Korean President Park Geun-hye, who has sought to re-engage North Korea with dialogue and humanitarian aid since taking office in February, expressed exasperation yesterday with what she called the ‘endless vicious cycle’ of Seoul answering Pyongyang’s hostile behavior with compromise, only to get more hostility.
NATO head Anders Fogh Rasmussen has been dispatched to Seoul for high level consultations.
The official disclaimer is that this has nothing to do with the ongoing US-DPRK confrontation. “The trip was long-planned and not connected with North Korean threats of nuclear war”.
Rasmussen is slated to meet the newly-elected President Park Geun-hye, Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se and Defence Minister Kim Kwan Jin.
Although unconfirmed, Rasmussen will likely also meet up with military brass of the South Korea-US Combined Forces Command.
When asked if the trip was in any way linked with rising tensions on the Korean peninsula, a NATO official candidly responded that
“Rather than the current crisis, it would instead cover Afghanistan where non-member South Korea has contributed some 350 troops to NATO-led forces fighting the Taliban” (NATO official statement quoted by AFP, April 9, 2013)
It is worth noting that Rasmussen’s presence in Seoul coincides with the visit by US Secretary of State John Kerry.
What is at stake are high level discussions.
The presence of Rasmussen also confirms that NATO has taken on a global military mandate well beyond the confines of the so-called “Atlantic region”.
It also points to the possible military involvement at some future date of NATO member states in the Korean Peninsula.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/head-of-nato-dispatched-to-south-korea/5330767
With tensions on the Korean peninsula soaring to include threats of nuclear war, frustration is mounting at what US policy experts see as the failure of all efforts to rein in North Korea.
Decades of threats have waxed and waned despite myriad attempts to reach out for talks or punish the regime, as seen recently in the tightening of UN sanctions.
North Korea watchers see a familiar pattern in which the communist state ramps up threats or takes actions such as missile launches or nuclear tests in a bid to show anger and force concessions from the United States.
Observers saw parallels between the latest crisis and 1994 when Pyongyang took on a bellicose tone as it faced pressure over its nuclear program at a time of political transitions in both North and South Korea.
The 1994 crisis ended when former US president Jimmy Carter flew to Pyongyang, setting the stage for a joint energy project that has been the inspiration for several initiatives since.
“I still don’t find any of the latest North Korean rhetoric that shocking. It’s perfectly predictable,” said Joel Wit, a former State Department official who was in charge of implementing the 1994 energy agreement.
“The difference this time is that they have nuclear weapons,” said Wit, now a scholar at Columbia University.
North Korea has threatened to attack the United States with nuclear weapons, although experts doubt it is able to. The United States, in turn, carried out runs by its nuclear-capable B-2 bomber as part of exercises with South Korea.
Other new factors in the latest crisis include question marks over North Korea’s young leader Kim Jong-Un and growing unhappiness from China over its smaller ally’s insolence.
Bruce Cumings, chairman of the history department at the University of Chicago and the author of several books on North Korea, said the 24-hour news environment had also changed the dynamics behind Pyongyang’s threats.
“You get instant attention on the World Wide Web which is so different than when I used to read their Central News Agency reports in the early ‘90s that would come a week late through Tokyo and you never knew if anyone would pay attention,” he said.
But Cumings said that North Korea’s tactics followed a pattern dating to even before the 1950-53 Korean War, when the communist leadership would threaten to destroy the South’s army.
“It is always the case with North Korea that when its back is put to the wall, it lashes out and it creates problems. It says: ‘If you want to sanction us, this is what you’re going to get’,” he said.
Cumings warned that tensions “are inevitable as long as the United States and South Korea are not willing to engage with North Korea.” “The North Koreans go about things in the worst way — they are their own worst enemy — but they keep saying that they want to talk to the United States in particular,” he said. But President Barack Obama’s administration has ruled out what is widely considered North Korea’s main aim — its symbolic recognition as a nuclear weapons state, seen by the regime as critical to ensure its survival.
The Obama administration, after long hesitation, last year sealed an aid-for-disarmament agreement with North Korea that fell apart in a matter of weeks after Pyongyang attempted to test a rocket.
The previous administration of George W. Bush similarly swung widely in its approach to North Korea. Bush famously grouped North Korea as part of an “axis of evil” and under his watch Pyongyang tested its first nuclear device.
But Bush, like Bill Clinton before him, tried late in his term to seal a historic far-reaching agreement with North Korea.
Some US conservatives criticized the Bush outreach and have called for an entirely new approach. Representative Ed Royce, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has called on the United States to avoid any future deals with North Korea and instead aim at toppling the regime.
(Free Beacon) -A Chinese Air Force officer on Saturday accused the U.S. government of creating the new strain of bird flu now afflicting parts of China as a biological warfare attack.
People’s Liberation Army Sr. Col. Dai Xu said the United States released the H7N9 bird flu virus into China in an act of biological warfare, according to a posting on his blog on Saturday.
The charge was first reported in the state-run Guangzhou newspaper Southern Metropolis Daily and then picked up by several news outlets in Asia.
State Department spokesman Jason Rebholz dismissed the claim. “There is absolutely no truth to these allegations,” he told the Washington Free Beacon.
Seven deaths from the bird flu outbreak were reported as of Tuesday in state-run Chinese media. As many as 24 people reportedly were infected by the disease in Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui.
Chinese authorities are trying to calm public fears of a major epidemic, claiming there is no evidence the virus can be transmitted between humans.
The government also is claiming that the outbreak is not related to the recent discovery of thousands of dead pigs floating in a river in China.
The accusation of U.S. biological warfare against China comes as the Pentagon is seeking closer military relations with China. Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is set to travel to China for talks with Chinese military leaders later this month.
Dai is a military strategist who in the past has been outspoken in seeking to foment conflict between China and the United States. He told the Global Times in August that China should go to war over U.S. support for Japan’s claims to the disputed Senkaku Islands.
Writing on Sina Weibo, a Chinese microblogging site akin to Twitter, Dai stated that the new bird flu strain was designed as a biological weapon similar to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which he also claimed was developed as a U.S. bio-weapon, that affected the country in 2003.
According to Dai’s posting, the new flu outbreak should not be a cause for concern. “The national leadership should not pay too much attention to it,” the PLA lecturer at the National Defense University wrote. “Or else, it’ll be like in 2003 with SARS!”
“At that time, America was fighting in Iraq and feared that China would take advantage of the opportunity to take other actions,” he said. “This is why they used bio-psychological weapons against China. All of China fell into turmoil and that was exactly what the United States wanted. Now, the United States is using the same old trick. China should have learned its lesson and should calmly deal with the problem.”
Dai said that even if “a few may die” from the flu outbreak, it will not equal one-thousandth of the deaths caused by vehicle accidents in China.
Dai in the past has called for China to punish the United States for U.S. arms sales to rival Taiwan, by selling arms to U.S. enemies. “China recognizes that a few perfunctory protests will not have any effect,” Dai said in 2010. “China can’t directly sanction American arms companies since they did not do business with China … but China can sanction companies that are doing business with China directly, like Boeing or General Electric.”
Dai also has said the United States has used crises with North Korea and offers of cooperation on the issue as a plot to drive a wedge between Beijing and its fraternal communist ally.
Dai also has said U.S. efforts to counter Chinese espionage and intelligence-gathering were part of a U.S. “plot theory” of “western countries threatening others by [releasing] information gained through spying in order to damage the reputations of other countries.”
A State Department official said China notified the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 31 about its first detected human cases of H7N9 infection. Fourteen cases were confirmed by the WHO by April 5, of which six were fatal. The organization said there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission.
“U.S. Embassy Beijing and U.S. Consulate Shanghai are monitoring the situation, working closely with counterparts at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, and the Beijing and Shanghai municipal governments,” the official said.
The colonel’s accusation provoked a widespread response on Chinese websites. One post in reaction joked that Dai’s comment about auto deaths must mean that the United States and Germany are responsible for a conspiracy to produce cars, according to a report in Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post.
Luo Changping, deputy editor of Caijing, said most PLA soldiers would not support Dai’s comments and he urged the colonel to resign and apologize to those who have died from the current bird flu outbreak.
A defiant Dai then said in a new posting Sunday that “it is common knowledge that a group of people in China have been injected with mental toxin by the United States.”
“Now, a group of fake American devils are attacking me,” he wrote in another post. “I will not retreat even half a step.”
Analysts say the colonel’s remarks are a reflection of the growing xenophobic atmosphere within the Chinese military that views the United States as its main enemy.
Former State Department intelligence analyst John Tkacik said China’s military was largely to blame for mishandling the 2003 outbreak of SARS. Tkacik said there was speculation when the epidemic began that “the PLA suspects SARS had emanated from its own biological laboratories and was all the more eager to keep it secret.” China is known to have a covert biological arms program.
“Col. Dai Xu is a shameless liar when he accuses the United States of using bio weapons,” Tkacik told the Free Beacon. “He’s probably motivated by a desire to exculpate the PLA for their mishandling of the epidemic—no doubt most Chinese have happily forgotten the episode—as much as by a cynical xenophobia. But, that’s what passes for deep strategic thought at China’s National Defense University these days.”
The Pentagon has been trying with varying success to develop closer ties to the Chinese military as part of a strategy aimed at building trust. However, China’s military leaders believe the U.S. offers of closer ties are a ruse designed to contain China’s growing military buildup.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel spoke by phone with China’s Defense Minister Gen. Chang Wanquan on April 2. Chang is the No. 4 defense official after Chinese President Xi Jinping and two other generals who run the Central Military Commission, the Communist Party’s ultimate power organ.
“The leaders both expressed their intention to work together to continue to build a military-to-military relationship that serves the vision of both President Obama and President Xi,” Pentagon press secretary George Little said in a statement after the call.
“The secretary discussed the importance of focusing on areas of sustained dialogue, practical areas of cooperation, and risk reducing measures,” he said.
U.S. ties with China are strained due to China’s reluctance to rein in neighboring North Korea.
China provides North Korea with large amounts of fuel oil and other goods. However, Beijing has not taken steps to pressure Pyongyang using its economic leverage during the ongoing crisis.
The flu has lit up China’s thriving Internet, according to analysts. Over 945,600 microblog postings addressed the flu between April 8 and 9. Since the outbreak began some seven days ago, between 1.3 million and 3 million postings were put online on outlets including Sina Weibo and QQ Weibo.
Tens of thousands of users expressed doubts about the official Shanghai municipal government’s denial of any link between the dead pigs found floating last month in the region’s Huangpu River.
The proximity to the initial outbreak in Shanghai and the river has led to speculation that the pig deaths may have been linked to the flu virus jumping from animals to humans.
That speculation was fueled by reports that one of the victims of the flu was a pig butcher.
The avian flu strain is similar to an earlier outbreak with a significant difference: The current strain does not kill the birds it infects, making it more difficult to identify infected poultry.
The Shanghai government waited 20 days before announcing the first H7N9 infection on March 31.
Pigs, Ducks, Black Swans, Chickens And Now Fish: The Shanghai Animal Apocalypse Accelerates
Shanghai just can’t catch a break – first it was floating dead pigs, then ducks, then black swans, then mass chicken exterminations, and now fish. From the Telegraph: ” Just weeks after over 16,000 putrefying pigs were pulled from Shanghai’s Huangpu river, more than 250kg of dead carp had to be retrieved from a river in the city’s Songjiang district. Mystery still surrounds the cause of death, but numerous explanations have surfaced in the Chinese media since residents first complained about the foul-smelling fish last Monday. Theories reportedly include climate change, electrocution, an explosion or even a drug overdose. The Shanghai Daily quoted a local government official who “speculated” the fish could have been “drugged.” So, in China things are so good, even the fish are ODing on sleeping pills? Hardly, but the fact that this is even floated “out there” just shows how miserably The Onion has missed its IPO window.
MCD slashing chicken prices in Shanghai on birdflu. How is YUM faring?
How do you know when the people “just say no” to chicken over rampant bird flu concerns? When even McDonalds (whose ad campaign for the past decade “I am loving it” continues to be an anagram for “ailing vomit“) is forced to slash chicken-related prices, in this case the 20 piece McNuggets, from CNY36 to CNY20. Pretty soon not even giving away the McMystery meat will clear out the shelves of all chicken-related fast food first in Shanghai and soon elsewhere in China. Finally, we dread to imagine the horrors that will befall Yum (read China KFC sales), now that after so much pain, the fast-food chain had finally reported a modest bounce in Chinese sales. So much for that.
Xinhua News Agency@XHNews22 h
Another H7N9 infection was reported in Anhui Province Sunday night, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in China to 21.
H7N9 Bird Flu Cases Reach 21 In China; Death Total Unchanged At Six
Three new cases of the deadly bird flu H7N9 were discovered in China yesterday, bringing the total in the country to 21, the government’s Xinhua news agency reported this morning. The sick have all been discovered in eastern China; Shanghai, one of the country’s most important international business hubs, has 10 of the cases.
Eastern Chinese cities have been closing live poultry markets and taking other measures to try to contain the disease which has killed six to date.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/russellflannery/2013/04/07/deadly-h7n9-bird-flu-cases-reach-21-in-china-death-total-unchanged-at-six/
Quite a lot of information here including the 21st case.
H7N9: Asia braces for spillover
Officials throughout Asia are implementing measures to protect themselves from a new strain of bird flu – H7N9 – that has so far infected 21 people in China, killing six.
These are the first human infections and deaths to have been recorded from this virus strain worldwide. China’s neighbours have reacted by boosting hospital capabilities and disease surveillance, strengthening border control, issuing reminders to ban illegal poultry imports, and more vigorously testing what is imported.
…
Gregor Peter@L0gg0l1 h
PLA officer calls H7N9 virus a US ‘bio-psychological weapon’, causes outrage in Chinese social media http://www.scmp.com/comment/blogs/article/1209796/pla-officer-calls-h7n9-virus-us-bio-psychological-weapon
Gregor Peter@L0gg0l2 h
Senior Chinese military official calls new bird flu a ‘US bio-psychological weapon’ http://www.weibo.com/1571497285/zqWOWFPoL … (h/t @Asher_Wolf) #H7N9
SACRAMENTO (AP) — Gov. Jerry Brown has designs on building some of the most expensive public works projects in the nation and wants to keep the state moving forward in its slow recovery from the recession.
Where better to go searching for the money to further those interests than the world’s second largest economy and a country that has piles of cash to invest around the globe?
Brown heads to China next week to begin a week-long trade mission that he hopes will produce investments on both sides of the Pacific. Brown will lead a delegation of business leaders in search of what he calls “plenty of billions.”
“They’ve got $400 billion or $500 billion they’re going to invest abroad, so California’s got to get a piece of that,” Brown said in an interview last week ahead of his seven-day trip to China.
The governor and the business leaders accompanying him are trying to rebuild the state’s official relationship with China after the state closed its two trade offices and others around the world a decade ago in a cost-cutting move. California finds itself playing catch-up to other states that have had a vigorous presence in China for years.
California, which would be the world’s ninth largest economy if it were a separate country, will open a trade office in Shanghai during Brown’s visit. The Bay Area Council, a coalition of business interests from Silicon Valley and the rest of the Bay Area, is raising about $1 million a year in private money to operate it.
“California shouldn’t be the only state in the union not to have a presence with key foreign trading partners like China,” said Jim Wunderman, the group’s president and CEO.
The council opened its own office in Shanghai in 2010 to fill the void after the closure of the trade offices. Bruce Pickering, executive director of the Northern California branch of the Asia Society, called the 2003 decision “penny wise but pound foolish.”
“We’ve basically said, ‘We’re California, show up and stand in line with everybody else,’” Pickering said. “You have to do a little more than just say you’re welcoming a business. … You have to really send a message that you are ready for it.”
The Asia Society, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes collaboration between the U.S. and Asia, reported in 2011 that businesses from China have established operations and created jobs in at least 35 of the 50 U.S. states, including California.
Pickering said California is behind other states in recruiting Chinese investment, while states as varied as Pennsylvania, Missouri, Florida and Arkansas have had an official presence there. The Republican governors of Iowa, Virginia, Wisconsin and Guam also are visiting China this month and meeting with provincial leaders to discuss trade and the environment.
“I would think it would be very difficult to try to attract investment without having someone on the ground there on your behalf,” said Joe Holmes, communications director for the Arkansas Economic Development Commission.
Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe led a mission to China last year, and a number of deals are being discussed as a result, Holmes said.
The Asia Society reported this year that China’s direct foreign investment is poised to skyrocket to between $1 trillion and $2 trillion by 2020. California is ideally situated to capture some of that money if it goes after it: China already is California’s third-largest export partner after Mexico and Canada.
Brown already has a relationship with President Xi Jinping. The two met to discuss trade issues last year when the then-vice president visited California.
Technology, life sciences, real estate, banking, health care and agriculture are among the industries state business leaders and officials hope to target. The concentration of skilled technical engineers and the clean-energy sector in Silicon Valley also are draws for emerging companies, along with Chinese tourism to California.
State and local tourism officials are among those joining Brown on the trip, along with winemakers, cheese producers and almond growers. In all, about 75 business and policy leaders from a cross section of California industries are joining the mission, which will include stops in the capital city, Beijing, as well as Shanghai and Guangzhou.
Those cities are among the most developed and important in China. Shanghai, a port city, is an important center of industry and finance, while Guangzhou is in the heartland of the Pearl River Delta Economic Zone, which is home to the myriad processing and assembling factories that have made China the world’s factory floor.
The nearly $4 billion a year in computer and electronic products California sends to China account for the state’s largest export, followed by waste and scrap, non-electrical machinery and transportation equipment. Agricultural products such as strawberries, almonds and lettuce are fifth.
According to the governor’s office, the vast majority of Chinese exports headed to the United States go through California ports.
The trip also signals a pivot for Brown as he seeks to rebuild California’s nearly $2 trillion economy after the state’s tumultuous ride during the Great Recession. It was the epicenter of the housing crisis and weathered double-digit unemployment for nearly four years.
Brown said the state budget has stabilized, in large part because of voter-approved tax increases, and that he is now moving on to broader policy issues.
“California is a place where it’s a cauldron of creative activity, and I see that China has some of that, maybe a lot of that,” Brown said in the interview. “You have always got to find a way to renew things, and that’s what I see as my job here.”
The governor’s boldest and most expensive projects are a $68 billion high-speed rail system that is expected to start construction this summer and a $24 billion project to build massive water-delivery tunnels and restore parts of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the largest estuary on the West Coast.
Brown is especially interested in studying China’s extensive high-speed rail system and using it as a way to promote his own plan, which has come under intense criticism and has been losing public support as its projected cost has soared. The governor is scheduled to ride part of China’s rail system from Beijing to Shanghai, accompanied by the chairman of California’s high-speed rail board, Dan Richard.
China has the world’s longest high-speed rail system, covering 5,800 miles, and has tried to turn it into a showcase. But the system also has faced problems: Part of a line collapsed in central China after heavy rains and a crash in 2011 killed 40 people. The former railway minister, who spearheaded the bullet train’s construction, and the ministry’s chief engineer, were detained in a corruption investigation.
Brown said he likes “the exuberance” with which Chinese officials approached building high-speed rail and would welcome investment in the California system or any other infrastructure projects in the state.
Despite the governor’s enthusiasm, it’s not clear how applicable the Chinese system is to a major infrastructure project in the U.S. The Chinese high-speed rail network benefits from heavy government financing and faces few of the environmental and legal hurdles found in California. The land needed to build the Chinese system is often forcibly procured at below market prices.
HELSINKI — “A British-registered ship (editor’s correction, ship is not “British-registered”) that was held in a Finnish port after authorities discovered 69 surface-to-air [Anti-ballistic] missiles and 160 tons of explosives onboard has permission to travel again, but without those materials or its captain, a port official said Monday.
Finnish authorities have confirmed the seizure of 69 Patriot missiles manufactured by Raytheon Corporation today.
(A popular graphic going viral on the internet, edited to eliminate an inappropriate ethnic reference)
During a routine search of the MS Thor Liberty, a ship flagged by the Isle of Man, at the Finnish port of Kotka, authorities found 69 Patriot missiles of a type capable of intercepting ICBMs, the most modern available and America’s most sensitive military technology.
Update: The official publication of the shipping industry, The Maritime Executive states:
“Finnish police launched a probe on a ship bound for Shanghai, China, after they discovered 69 surface-to-air Patriot missiles, explosive materials, and propelling charges illegally aboard. “ Note, what had been called by some “chemicals” are now “propelling charges.” What they propel, of course, are guided missiles from nuclear submarines and plutonium and uranium components into contact to inititate nuclear explosions.
Germany officials have offered to take responsibility for the shipment to China though there is no record of Germany ever having received the missiles in the first place. There had been a shipment of PAC 2 missiles, 64, several months ago, which had been completed. No further shipment had been scheduled.
Germany is responding to a request from Netanyahu to Merkel to save Israel from a potential spy scandal.Similarly, a South Korean paper has published a story about the missiles but at no time has the South Korean embassy in Helsinki, made a statement or made contact with authorities as would be expected. This one gets more interesting every day.
Germany has a long history of working with Israel, call it “war guilt” or profiteering. The centrifuges used to develop nuclear weapons that were distributed by Israel, first to South Africa then by Israeli Johann Meyer to Libya were of Germany origin. Saddam Hussein received his biological and chemical warfare equipment from Germany, but through Bush family sources, not Israel.
We are told the missiles heading to China were to be “cloned” for sale along with radar and launch units, already there. They would be sold worldwide under Israeli branding in competition with the US. Israel is free to sell to clients the US would be likely to refuse.
The JA 20 Stealth fighter, built from plans stolen by Bush era White House Israeli “dual-citizens” is only one of dozens of defense projects stolen by Israeli spies and sent to China. China has every current nuclear weapons design and plans to upgrade its submarine fleet and will be building aircraft carriers eventually. All will be done with American technology.
Here is the photo of the ship’s ‘very special’ explosives in shrink wrapped cardboard boxes. Do you really think this is how western Allied/NATO countries transport munitions, or would allow hugely expensive anti-ballistic missiles to be put on a ship like this? If there was a detonation device in one of these boxes that could set it off (like with a satellite phone call), it would go up like an A-bomb. No one would have been looking for the 69 Patriot ABM’s listed as rockets or firecrackers. There is one rouge country’s Intelligence service, an American ally, that could do this in it’s sleep because it had extensive practice while building it’s WMD programs, the details of which our America government still holds secret from Americans.
Attempts to represent this as a sale of “second hand” PAC 2 missiles, stories filling the blogosphere, fail to address that these are PAC 3 advanced missiles and labeled for shipment to China, not Korea.
Patriot ICBM Interceptor - PAC3
The next stop for this cargo, valued at over $4 billion even without the associated radar, which may well have been shipped via some other method, was Shanghai, China.
Yet the Chinese government has given an official denial of any knowledge of this transaction.They went even further, they claimed the missiles were heading to South Korea.
However, were China to have given the issue a second’s thought, it would have been advisable to have failed to acknowledge any familiarity with the issue whatsoever.
China walked into a trap, one that uncovered their espionage cooperation agreements that involved, not the receipt of advanced Patriot missile systems but the full plans for the F22 stealth fighter.
Initial stories from 2009 indicating China has received plans for the F35 though espionage with Israel were false.
The F22 is a far more advanced aircraft.
On April 21, 2009, the Department of Defense announced the theft of 1.5 terabytes of data on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the platform meant give the United States and her allies air superiority for the next 40 years.
In a flash, all that was gone, $300 billion dollars of funding down the drain, every system, defense, offense, stealth, everything needed to build one or shoot it down, all gone. Day one, China was accused but it wasn’t China, it wasn’t Iran, it wasn’t Pakistan.
The theft left a clear signature, one identical to the data Wikileaks has been receiving, sources inside the Pentagon repeating the actions of Israeli-Soviet spy, Jonathan Pollard. As vital as the F-35 is to America’s defense, Pollard’s triumph on behalf of Soviet Russia and Israel dwarfs the current espionage coup.
Since the 2009 announcement, there has been nothing but silence.
Now we learn the Pentagon story was “cover” and it was the F22 Raptor, not the F35, an “export plane,” that was compromised:
F-22A Raptors - America Top Fighter
The Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 Raptor is a single-seat, twin-engine fifth-generation super maneuverable fighter aircraft that uses stealth technology.
It was designed primarily as an air superiority fighter, but has additional capabilities that include ground attack, electronic warfare, and signals intelligence roles.[6]
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics is the prime contractor and is responsible for the majority of the airframe, weapon systems and final assembly of the F-22.
Program partnerBoeing Defense, Space & Security provides the wings, aft fuselage, avionics integration, and training systems.The aircraft was variously designated F-22 and F/A-22 during the years prior to formally entering USAF service in December 2005 as the F-22A.
Despite a protracted and costly development period, the United States Air Force considers the F-22 a critical component of US tactical air power, and claims that the aircraft is unmatched by any known or projected fighter.[7]
While Lockheed Martin claims that the Raptor’s combination of stealth, speed, agility, precision and situational awareness, combined with air-to-air and air-to-ground combat capabilities, makes it the best overall fighter in the world today.[8]
Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, former Chief of the Australian Defence Force, said in 2004 that the “F-22 will be the most outstanding fighter plane ever built.”[9]
Raptor Formation
The high cost of the aircraft, a lack of clear air-to-air combat missions because of delays in the Russian and Chinese fifth-generation fighter programs, a US ban on Raptor exports, and the ongoing development of the planned cheaper and more versatile F-35 resulted in calls to end F-22 production.[N 1]
In April 2009 the US Department of Defense proposed to cease placing new orders, subject to Congressional approval, for a final procurement tally of 187 Raptors.[11] The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 lacked funding for further F-22 production.
The final F-22 Raptor fighter jet rolled off the assembly line on 13 December 2011 during a ceremony at the Lockheed Martin aircraft plant at Dobbins Air Reserve Base.[2]
China is testing a 5th generation fighter, 20 years earlier than estimated, the JA 20. It is based on systems from the Raptor and is considered a far superior plane to the F 35.From a January, 2011 Guardianstory suppressed in the United States:
Chinese F22 Raptor Clone, 20 Years Early
A photograph of what is reported to be a new Chinese stealth fighter and “carrier-killer” missile has prompted concerns that a tilt in the balance of military power in the western Pacific towards China may come sooner than expected.
The emergence of the hi-tech weaponry – which would make it more difficult for the US navy and air force to project power close to Taiwan and elsewhere on China’s coastline – comes at a politically sensitive time.
Later this month, President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, will hold a summit in Washington aimed at patching up their differences after a niggling year in bilateral relations.
he photograph, of what appears to be a prototype J-20 jet undergoing initial tests, has been circulating on the internet since last week, fueling speculation that China’s fifth-generation fighter may fly ahead of forecast.(Attempts have been made to alter photos of the plane and misrepresent its “lineage.” The only alterations from the F22 seem to be the rear control surfaces. What has been most telling is the attempt to misconstrue the JA 20 as a “large bodied” interceptor with a weapons bay for anti-ship missiles instead of the air superiority fighter it actually is. )
The defence ministry has yet to comment on the image, which seems to have been shot from long-distance near the Chengdu aircraft design institute. The photographer is also unknown, which has added to the mystery about its origins and authenticity as well as the motive of the distributor.
But defence analysts believe this is the first glimpse of the twin-engined, chiseled-nosed plane that mixes Russian engine technology with a fuselage design similar to that of the US air force’s F-22 “stealth” fighter, which can avoid detection by radar.
If confirmed, it would be an impressive step forward for the Chinese air force, which until now has largely depended on foreign-made or designed planes. “I’d say these are, indeed, genuine photos of a prototype that will make its maiden flight very soon,” said Peter Felstead, the editor of Jane’s Defence Weekly.
The J20 is likely to be many years from deployment, but the US defence secretary, Robert Gates – who visits Beijing next week – may have to revise an earlier prediction that China will not have a fifth generation aircraft by 2020.
It is not the only challenge to US superiority in the region. China has refurbished a Ukrainian aircraft carrier and wants to build its own by 2020.
Photo corrected from “stretch” version issued to mislead public
The US and Israel had scheduled an air defense exercise this week but no Patriot missiles were to be shipped to Israel as part of their mission, DOD sources indicate.
This week’s exercise was to use Patriot missiles deployed from American ships in the eastern Mediterranean to test Israeli missile defenses. Reports indicate that all missiles for this exercise have been accounted for.
” Patriots Away ”
These units, the most advanced Patriot system had only been supplied to one nation, Israel.
The 69 Patriot ICBM interceptors are believed to be a highly secret consignment demanded by Israel as protection from any retaliatory strike by Iran were war to break out in the region.
Instead of deploying them, the missiles were apparently sold to China labeled as “fireworks” according to Interior Minister Paivi Rasanen.
Though the missiles themselves were worth only $4 billion, the technology transfer itself would be worth over $125 billion, and represent a significant loss of defense capability for the United States.
Sources termed it, “An absolute disaster, even if they only received the radar systems alone, much less the missiles.That this would go unreported though the story was broken in Europe 48 hours ago is astounding.
Nobody in Washington has this although even the BBC report contains more than enough information to bring Washington to a halt.
DOD sources indicate that it would be unusual for these missiles to be moved without radar and launch facilities to have been moved in advance. It was also indicated that the Department of Defense denies shipping any such missiles to Germany or anywhere else in Europe, labeled as “fireworks” or anything else.
The owner of the ship of record is Thorco Shipping. Their representative, Thomas Mikkelsen said he was unaware any such cargo was on board his vessel.
Patriot Command Control Center
Claims were made that the missiles were destined for South Korea but an examination of documentation indicated that there were no South Korean ports scheduled.
Additionally, the likelihood that the US government would ship its most valuable and secret missile technology through Germany mislabeled as “fireworks” rather than on a C 17 under military security supports the Finnish claim.
Finnish police say they opened all 69 units, are recording serial numbers and have been unable to find any documentation indicating the real ownership of the seized cargo.
And they certainly have found nothing involving the any of the claimed “cover stories” involving Germany or Korea, otherwise, of course, the cargo would never have been seized nor would there have been arrests made.
Detective Superintendent Timo Virtanen of the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation is in charge of the case. He has stated:
”Actually, in our investigation at the moment, we have got the information that we found 69 Patriot missiles on the ship and around 160 tonnes of explosives.”
The explosives are identified as nitroguandine, a low sensitivity explosive with a very high detonation speed. These explosives have several uses, among them launching shipboard or submarine launched missiles or in the development and testing of nuclear weapons design.
Finnish authorities indicate the explosives were packed in an “informal” and highly dangerous manner and that the Thor Liberty’s captain and chief officer are under arrest on suspicion of arms trafficking. Both are citizens of the Ukraine.The government of China has denied all knowledge of the incident although the cargo was destined for their ports.
The head of Finnish Customs CID, Petri Louatmaa said this was not the first such incident but by far the most serious he has ever heard of.Finland has requested “information” from several countries.
The US Department of Defense has assured all involved that these missiles were not being sent to South Korea and that their presence on a civilian ship either being loaded in Germany or in port in Finland was in now way a part of any exercise nor any accepted methodology for the handling of this type of ultra-high technology weaponry.
American sources further indicated confusion at the odd number of missiles:
“There are two missiles per launch container. The containers can’t be easily opened and the missiles can’t be removed for examination without damage to the launch mechanism.They are delivered for mounting to ships or land based mobile launchers. Thus, the packaging indicated either demonstrates confusion or serious unprofessional tampering.”
Israeli officials have failed to respond to questions about the consignment.Air Force transport command personnel indicate that high tech transfers to Israel are routinely offloaded at Schipol Airport in the Netherlands where Israel maintains secure facilities.
Editing: Jim W. Dean
Patriot PAC3s Are Shipped in Pairs - Ground to Air Patriots are Shipped With Lauchers
Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=173458
Posted by Gordon Duff on Dec 23 2011, With 40350 Reads, Filed under Editor, WarZone. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
To post, we ask that you login using Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, or Hotmail in the box below.
Don’t have a social network account? Register and Login direct with VT and post.
Before you post, read our Comment Policy - Feedback
The numbers don’t add up , I was thinking that ONE was missing . It is more than that , this launcher carries 16 missiles . To reload it 4 times requires 64 missiles , but we have 69 so it must have been at least enough to reload 5 times which takes 80 missiles . I think at least 11 are missing !
The F22 was a dud and none of America’s allies wanted to buy it. The US military is the only military using the aircraft.
The F35 is another over priced dud that is not competitive in the marketplace. Apparently the Japanese have brought about 40 of them so that the US has a good news story to put out in the worlds media – probably because all of America other allies have already said they do not want to buy them. Canada’s media has had an open discussion about the F35 saying how the Canadan Government should not have to buy a piece of rubbish that no other US allies want to buy. No doubt the Japanese were either given the F35 or somehow made to buy it.
Really? Britain is buying the F-35. The Netherlands are buying the F-35. Italy is buying the F-35, and will be the site of the major overhaul facility in Europe. Denmark is buying the F-35. Norway is buying the F-35. Israel is buying the F-35.
Yes, the cost is higher than it should be, but a lot of that is because of the union that controls Lockheed. While the company is desperately trying to cut costs, the union is telling the workers that they have to strike this spring and they cannot accept any contract that doesn’t include a lot more benefits and more money. Another cost problem is that the Obama Administration and the Harry Reid Senate have cut back on the production schedule. That again causes the cost per aircraft to rise.
It will be a fantastic aircraft once all of the early bugs get worked out, and there are ALWAYS bugs in early production models of military aircraft. Is it going to be perfect? No, but it is definitely needed to replace our aging Hornets, Harriers, and Falcons.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27qdB1D0s9M&feature=related
This is a bit of a slanted video but calling the F 35 a useless flying garbage truck is generous.
The Pakisistani J10 for 95% less performs slightly better in most roles.
The Russian planes….ouch.
I have worked in the area of product development and yes you always launch a product when it gets close to 95% and iron the bugs out afterwards after freeback, but the Japanese are the only US ally currently buying the F35 – no one else wants to pay the $200 million US dollar a plane price tag. The F35 is no where near an acceptable standard.
from a reader:
In October 1992 I moved into the home of Raytheon employee Hank Turner and his art-historian wife Carolyn in Acton, MA. This was just prior to the 1992 Presidential election. Carolyn informed me that Hank was away, “teaching the Chinese how to build the Patriot Missile”. When Hank came home around the beginning of November 1992, he confirmed he’d been in China, “teaching the Chinese how to build the Patriot Missile”. Hank brought some gifts home from China to his family, and gave me one, too – one I still have.
Some months later the news magazines screamed with hysteria, “President Clinton sold the Patriot Missile to China!”. It was clear what had really happened: Bush-Cheney had set that up to go off during Clinton’s term in office.
The US powers-that-be have been selling, giving and throwing away state secrets to both China and Israel for decades.
Every intelligence operation like this has to have a “cover and deception” plan. Putting these on the worse form of transportation possible and loading around them enough explosives to vaporize an entire harbour is a good way of CYA.
The chance of patriot missiles being shipped outside their launching containers or off their mobile launchers is low. Each missile cost more than a mobile launcher itself.
These things are designed to be loaded on and off c5 and c17 planes and i suspect may sit on a c 130 as well.
g
The other possibility is that Israel (with or without official U.S. complicity) simply ripped somebody (China?) off.
They agree to sell the missiles, they accept payment (full or even partial), and then they make sure the missiles are poorly packaged (or whatever they have to do including an anonymous tipster making some phone calls) and have some third party make the discovery.
Then the missiles get sent back to the U.S. (or wherever) the Jews already have their money, and the injured party that was supposed to receive the missiles is up a creek without a paddle, apparently all because of some fake “incompetence” somewhere in the process.
I’d love to see this brought up in an upcoming candidate debate….
Good job Gordon
Merry Christmas Gordon & ALL Veterans Today staff. Thanks for all your wonderful work. All the best for the new year.
I wonder where number 70 is and who is reverse engineering it ?
1 guess. Lol.
The general strategic context, fueled by a systemic financial breakdown crisis, is that we are in the initial stages of WWIII with Israel and the US at the center of instigation. It makes perfect sense, given Israel’s documented penchant for stabbing its benefactor in the back, for Israel to have arranged this subrosa sale of Partiot missiles to China– perhaps as a hedge in case China emerges in better shape than the US in the aftermath of a conflict.
As soon as I post this I will be preparing an email to President Obama,Senator patty Murray,Senator maria Cantwell and Congressman Norm Dicks.I might even throw one in to Joe Liberman as well.I suggest that every reader send this on to all of their contacts.I would say to their newspaper but we all know that such information is seldom published and if it is,a two inch column on page 13 is all it receives.But we all need to start making noise until we are heard.Maybe that will be never but let’s not go down without fighting to spread the message.
I’d skip Lieberman Lawrence….I’m pretty sure he’s partly responsible, directly or indirectly. He’s Sayanim, and I’m sure he wants you in a camp with me next door.
Larry
This is one for u to spend some time on.
Never has anything been so obvious and it to the Finnish government to show some backbone.
g
I have to admit that I lost those missiles. Please arm them and send (launch) them back to me. My address is `1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, D.C.
Two things not cleared up in american history. The first is, McCarthy was right, there were thousands more soviet spies and conspirators in the US and Britain. And the situation was perhaps 100 times worse than he knew at the time. He was silenced. Second, Jews are the communists and Soviets. They just had to buy up all the media in the world to silence that, and they did.
If there’s a buck to be made, Israel (Nazi’s, communists, Rockefeller, 8 families) control it.
I have to hand it to them, how brilliant is communism? To convince 1.5 billion people it’s all about equality, when it was the greatest theft of property and wealth in the history of mankind, consolidated into the hands of maybe 100 people. Can’t do that without media. Of course, you have to kill off most of the whites first. When David Rockefeller said “Our experiment in China is working nicely” he was misunderestimating.
Now they’ve convinced people that because the 8 families didn’t feel like lending to each other (which they were), they need to take our wealth to make sure loans between the 8 families continue. Magnificent, that’s almost beyond belief. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, and they bought it again. When your family prints money, you don’t need to lend it to your brother, he’s printing his own, trust me.
Yeah, I’m having a hard time believing Gordon here. They would never do such a thing! Just like with the Manhattan Project, that was all the same spies working for the same people. Is it because bankers aren’t elected that people can’t see they control world policy? It’s not Israel stealing 5th generation aircraft, latest generation missiles, and everything else we make. It’s bankers hiring Israel to do this. It was bankers who payed people to kill off 75 million white Russians. It was bankers who were directly responsible for Napoleon. For Lenin, Stalin, Mao. Do we need to go all the back to Babylon?
Here’s an article that will help some people see why the Murrah building was blown up, why 9-11 had to happen, and what it is that bankers really do in this world. I’ve been following this story for a long, long time. It’s the minions running around doing what they do, and in the end, a banker swoops in and finishes off the survivors. Just like Gordons story, except G’s story indirectly points out that they want the survivors to have this technology after the fires of WWIII are out. They don’t have sides you see, they created the whole production. Merry Christmas.
http://theintelhub.com/2011/12/22/enron-taliban-warburg-the-untold-story/
Where I was duped was by Bob Gates, back in 09, when he passed off the theft of data as being F35. This was a “press release” and I took it like everyone else.
Will not make that mistake again…I hope.
g
It’s odd that 69 missiles were found. 69 is the well known sexual position, perhaps just a coincidence but the Mossad is infatuated with numbers. Perhaps the Mossad is showcasing it’s warped humor. They waited exactly 911 days from their 911 false flag to do the Madrid bombing.
Brian,
What I was yelled at about was the number. “How the hell could there be 69 missiles. Taking one out would be a huge mess, nobody is that stupid.”
To which I answered, the Finns are doing this, not me. This is their count.
g
It might be wise for any military guys involved in the care and feeding of these missile systems to consider any irregularities they may be privy to in the ensuing time since this Israeli deal was struck. The dual passport pirates in congress, the white house, the Pentagon and their minions will stop at nothing to make this one go away. This kinda reminds me of the missing nukes out of Minot AFB and the troopers that had fatal accidents during the investigative period following.
Merry Christmas and remember the USS Liberty.
to: Gordon Duff
from: STOP godvernment Treasons
Please excuse me, but I’m a new kid on the block. I want to be sure I clearly understand — with your help. Is it only my wild imagination, or does this whole chain of events seem set up with chance after chance to fumble? Stupid handoff after stupid handoff.
C 17 to Schipol, to Germany, to Finland, to (maybe S Korea, then, to) China? Hopscotch??? And who knows where else between Finland and China. Murmansk? Northern Canada? With such a circuituous route, why not Africa or South America?
Wouldn’t it be smarter to re-fuel and ship all the way to israhell via C 17?
Why not go to, for example, Lajes, or to Rota, Spain and ship them across the Med?
Why entrust the cargo to a ship captained by Ukrainians? I’ve lived there for years. They’re treacherous. Especially the higher you go up the chain-of-command. It’s genetic.
Isn’t there a better sea route to China than via Finland? This doesn’t add up.
What does add up is culpability by israhelli zion nazis and even some USSSSSA lapdog(s) in the DoD.
—————————–
USSSSSA = un-free soviet socialist satanic slave states of amerikka (overrun, ruined and run by demonic zion nazis that micro-manage power-crazed, megalomaniac neo-comms that are anti-US & traitors. neo-comms & zionists are Pure Evil and inhumans. Their actions have been and shall continue proving it.)
—————————–
But even this premise is flawed. Why wouldn’t USSSSSA neo-comms simply ship them across the Pacific?
Daily they commit multiple TREASONS. They fear no Justice, reprisals or comeuppance meted out by mindless masses of severely dumbed-down, amerikkan idolators that are too busy worshipping “American Idol” and “Dancing with Joe Blow”. Any TRAITORS caught shipping directly would ignore facts and have mainstream propaganda networks remain silent or -what the talking heads are experts at- be LIARS. And the TRAITORS would continue doing business-as-usual TREASONS. That’s their job. It’s what they do best. It’s why zion nazis installed them.
Gordon, I’m surely not alone here trying to make sense of this. There’s something you know in this report that at least some of the rest of us didn’t quite catch. Help us out. Thanks. And, Merry Christmas.
The Israeli arms depot at Schipol is there because Israel is the 4th largest arms trader in the world and it is impossible to move certain items in and out of Israel. Ask them, not me.
Glad you mention that. If you account for the international and U.N. loopholes, Israel is actually #1 in the world. Because they change m-16′s, and hundreds of other weapons from the US into another designation, they are by proxy USA, the largest dealer in the world. Wayne Madsen, and Philip Dick proved it back in 05′-06′ ‘ish.
Gee, kids, isn’t this going to be the BEST Christmas EVER?
With the non-stop and ever increasing open absurdity of the “traitors in our midst”, I’m thinking out loud that “the LAST Christmas EVER” has a growing base of supporting evidence. Enjoy this one, and hope-like-hell I am “way out in left field” on this “observation/interpretation.
My sarcasm aside, I think you may be right. Enjoy this Christmas and every minute of every day. But remember, too, our obligation to fight the traitors in our midst, as you put it.
Just like Christ did.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave!
Seems pretty clear to me why the title is such . Israel is the only nation to have been supplied with these 69 missiles . Israel demanded them to use against Iran’s missiles , but here they are on a ship heading to China . They were supposed to be deployed but weren’t , either they were stolen or Israel SOLD them !
Goyim were serving
“or is this speculation?” Trudy I don’t think Gordon deals in speculation.
Like the missing trillions they refuse to investigate or 911 because they know all roads would lead to Zionistan. Sort yourselves out America. Have you not been played enough by this criminal terrorist entity that squats on stolen land?
So, if Israel is the only country that can get these “Latest Versions” of the Patriots, and they are made in the US for the military in the US, how do they wind up in a non-official shipping configuration, being shipped on an unprotected ship, with the next stop the Far East?
Either some “Traitors” here or Israel, or something more we don’t know. They couldn’t have a valid export license from the country of origin, because we would NOT give one, and there is no docs.
Sorry, but those missiles were not from Israel. They were being shipped from Germany to South Korea.
Oh, sorry then. Did your mom tell you this?
I will be the first one to believe that Israel sold these missiles to China, knowing their history. However, in the interest of journalism, is there some evidence of this that you have not revealed or is this speculation?
Did you read that the ship was impounded and the captain and first officer under arrest?
You read the statements, DOD and Finland.
The “connected dots” are quite minimal.
As for shipment and storage, that source is credited to the US Air Force transport command in Charleston, South Carolina.
thanks guys!!
g
Dear Gordon,
At the end of 2011, the headline “69 Newest Patriot Missiles Bound For Reds”
.
I would have thought that “Reds” was a bit passe these days. Based on the current bill restricting, YET AGAIN, the freedoms and rights of the people of the US, one could almost call such a move as one that was standard practice in the days of the Nazis, but we don’t call the government of the US, Nazis.
So Reds? Your comment really surprises me.
Hey Rex
Communism still has its purposes here….most Americans think this is 1956, why try to tell them otherwise.
g
given the facts put forth in this article.. Where exactly does the articles author come to the conclusion that “israel Sold the weapons to China”? as the article States ” Finnish police say they opened all 69 units, are recording serial numbers and have been unable to find any documentation indicating the real ownership of the seized cargo. ” so that Begs the question.. if they ahve NO Documentation to show who Owns them, or Where they came from.. then on What basis does the articles author Claim to be able to Deduce that “israel sold China the missles”? sorry, but that’s a Valid Key point. This is an example of Very Shoddy reporting, and maybe even Wishfull Grasping at straws to make a “Big Splash” with the articles headline. Such a Shame.
You have point there.
Just because the U.S. sold/gifted these missiles only to the state of Israel, and the same number of missiles were found, earmarked as “fireworks,” on a ship destined for China, does not mean Israel re-sold the missiles or they were sold to China for a quick profit.
It’s like paying your taxes. Just because you send your taxes to the Treasury, the checks actually go to the privately owned The Federal Reserve.
The moral integrity of Israel is without question. All one has to do is look at the Treaty of Alliance America has with Israel to know what I am talking about.
Well the last time Israel sold secrets to China, it was the nukes. So I think the patriot missile, qualifies as fireworks. Talk about playing both sides of the fence. But do not worry, if you need a heart, they will kill someone, if you have the money. I would not doubt it if they sold the codes to Iran on the drones. Gordon, I have a prediction for 2012. Ron Paul is winning the Rep. primary, one or two false flags happen, and Obama calls for marshal law. After that, anyone on the list (which they compiled by spying), will be taken away. Obama will suspend the election (claiming executive powers), and will declare, turn in your guns, or you are on the terror list. I know you have a better grip, then I do. Gordon, I know you do not have a crystal ball. But what do think will happen in 2012?
Comments are closed
Quick Links: About VT | Editorial Board & Staff | Columnist Guidelines | Join VT Columnist Team | Advertising | Newsletter Sign Up
Archives | Reprint Permissions | Report Copyrght Issue | Ethics and Values | Report Ethical Issue | Comment Policy | RSS Feeds | Contact Us
© 2013 Veterans Today. All Rights Reserved. Veterans Today Network - Log in - - Mobile Site
The Paris-based organization of 34 global economies said Friday that China can average 8 percent growth during the current decade, after accounting for price differences. The forecast is contingent on Beijing’s ability to continue implementing certain economic, financial and regulatory reforms.
“Those forecasts definitely look bullish, even a bit higher than average market expectations,” Win Thin, global head of emerging-markets strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. in New York, told Bloomberg News. “There is no major risk in the Chinese economy.”
China’s growth slowed to 7.8 percent in 2012, marking its lowest level in more than a decade. However, the organization predicts that China’s economy will rebound to 8.5 percent growth in this year and 8.9 percent the following year. That prediction is well ahead of Beijing’s more conservative target of 7 percent average growth by 2015.
“This is the one country that always lowballs their growth” the OECD’s Angel Gurria told the Financial Times.
China’s current GDP is officially $8.25 trillion, though it’s estimated to be much greater when adjusted for purchasing parity, making $12.38 trillion more accurate, which is third in the world behind the EU ($15.70 trillion) and the U.S. ($15.66 trillion), according to the International Monetary Fund.
Per capita GDP for China is $9,100, which ranks the nation at a dramatically different 118th place in the world. The U.S. is ranked 12th in the world in terms of per capita GDP at $49,800.
OECD’s 2016 projection is significant because the IMF estimates that China will overtake the U.S. by 2017, when the U.S. GDP will be $19.70 trillion compared with China’s $20.33 trillion.
The OECD’s survey of China found that its middle class and wealthy segments are growing so fast that consumption has been a bigger driver of growth since 2011 than investment has.
However, the report also identifies major risks China faces as its economy balloons, including a weakened global economy, rising inflation, financial instability, income inequality, an aging population and restrictive policies controlling urbanization. International Business Times
International analysts widely expect China’s economy, given its high growth rates, to overtake the U.S. in terms of gross domestic product, or total size, some time in the first half of this century; though differ on exact timing and criteria. The Telegraph
A U.S. intelligence report said in December that China’s economy is likely to surpass the United States in less than two decades while Asia will overtake North America and Europe combined in global power by 2030. Reuters
China will overtake the United States economically within six years, according to a January finding from the Nation’s Health Report issued by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Global Times said.
In just five years, China has surpassed the United States as a trading partner for much of the world, including U.S. allies such as South Korea and Australia, according to an Associated Press analysis of trade data. AP
As recently as 2006, the U.S. was the larger trading partner for 127 countries, versus just 70 for China. By 2011, the two had clearly traded places: 124 countries for China, 76 for the U.S. AP
(NaturalNews) Another day, another Chinese food scare. KFC is dropping more than 1,000 farms from its network of suppliers in China to make sure the food it serves is safe after a scandal over tainted chicken hurt company sales in that key (meaning large) emerging market last year.
The issue came up in December when officials in China’s commercial hub of Shanghai and the northern province of Shanxi were looking at KFC suppliers following claims that the chicken the company was selling had a high antibiotics content.
The scare caused a six percent drop-off in China sales of KFC’s parent company, Yum! Brands in the final quarter of 2012, Agence France Presse reported, which was more severe than the firm’s previous estimate of a four percent decline.
Company officials knew of the problem in 2010, but kept quiet
KFC says it will no longer use chicken farms that run potential risk of further supplying tainted product, step up its screen process of suppliers and increase self-inspections to address future food safety concerns, the company said in a statement.
“It will always be our top priority to provide customers with the safest chicken with the best quality,” Yum China’s chairman and top executive, Sam Su, said in the statement. “We have seen some safety problems from the incident…and we aim to address the issue within the shortest time.”
The company also vowed to improve its communication efforts with the Chinese government and the public following an admission by the Chinese branch of Yum in January that it failed to inform the proper authorities about tests showing high levels of antibiotics in chicken.
Yum officials said the company was aware of the problem via testing by a third party in 2010 and 2011 but did not report the findings to authorities, according to a statement by the Shanghai government in December.
China has been the focus of a number of food safety incidents in recent months and years. Here are just a few of the most high-profile incidents:
— In 2008, one of the biggest scandals occurred when melamine, an industrial chemical, made its way into dairy products, killing at least six babies and making 300,000 people sick. This scandal was kept under wraps by Chinese authorities for months to avoid embarrassment ahead of the Olympic games held in Beijing. When word got out, average Chinese citizens were outraged at the government, as confidence in the ruling regime’s ability to regulate food safety fell dramatically.
— Our editor-in-chief and founder, Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, has reported recently that China is essentially awash in pollution, and that the nation is “an environmental nightmare.” As such, it’s difficult if not impossible to trust that so-called “organic” products from the world’s most populous nation are safe, let along truly organic. (http://www.naturalnews.com)
— In April 2011, police in the northeastern city of Shenyang seized 40 tons of bean sprouts that were tainted with sodium nitrite and urea, as well as antibiotics and a plant hormone known as 6-benzyladenine. The chemicals were used to make the sprouts grow more quickly and look “shinier” at the marketplace. 12 people were arrested.
— More than three-and-a-half tons of “yard-long” green beans that were contaminated with a banned pesticide, isocarbophos, were destroyed after being found on sale in the central city of Wuhan in March 2010. The beans originated in the southern city of Sanya; allegations of another attempted cover-up came after the Sanya agricultural law enforcement bureau decided it would be “inconsiderate” of Wuhan authorities to make the case public.
— A professor from Wuhan Polytechnic Universityconducted an undercover investigation in March 2010 and turned up this disturbing fact: One in 10 of all meals in China were made using recycled oil, “often scavenged from the drains beneath restaurants,” London’s Telegraph newspaper reported. State food and drug administration officials issued a nationwide emergency before launching an official investigation into the use of the “sewer oil.”
(Explosive Reports) -According to AFP, a state official working to enforce China’s one-child policy drove over a 13-month old baby-boy, resulting in the infant’s death.
A news item issued by PhuketNews relates that the official had an argument with the parents as, presumably, they “violated” the one-child policy by refusing to pay a fine. The reports goes on to say that the parents acted “agitated” in response to the official’s request.
The spokesman stated that the parents of the murdered baby were “agitated” as a result of the disagreement with the one-child policy enforcer, after which the official in question drove his car over the baby. PhuketNews however reports that Wenzhou authorities were quick to label the murder as an unfortunate accident:
“After starting the car to bring the family to the office to discuss the matter, the official discovered the child had been crushed underneath the car.”
Tragically the baby died soon as a result of his wounds shortly after he was rushed to the hospital: yet another victim of China’s draconian one-child policy. The Global Post goes into more detail in regards to the fine mentioned in the AFP report:
“Under China’s population controls, instituted more than 30 years ago, couples who have more than one child must pay a “social upbringing” fine, while in some cases mothers have been forced to undergo abortions.”
The Global Post article also brings into memory that China’s population control policies have been increasingly subject to criticism, both from outside China and within.
“There was widespread outrage last year after a woman who had been forced to abort seven months into her pregnancy was pictured with the bloody foetus.”
On March 29, 2012, Paul Joseph Watson brought attention to the brutal face of China’s one-child policy, describing how a 9-month old baby was forcibly aborted, after which it was thrown in a bucket. Watson writes:
“Because the parents of the baby already had a child, they were hunted down and forced to comply with China’s draconian one child policy.
The mother was injected with a poison that induced an abortion, but after the baby was “pulled out inhumanly like a piece of meat,” it was still alive and began to cry before doctors slung the defenseless child into a bucket and left it to die.”
Although some may try to comfort themselves by imagining these one-child ideas are limited to China, the fact is these ideas and policies are widely held and promulgated by politicians and scientists all over the world. In 2010, Business Insider featured a post by geography professor Gary L. Peters under the header Population Growth Is Still The Biggest Problem Facing Humanity.
After channeling armchair-eugenicist Alan Weisman, who stated: “The intelligent solution (to the problem of population growth) would require the courage and the wisdom to put our knowledge to the test. It would henceforth limit every human female on Earth capable of bearing children to one”, the professor added:
“Started now, such a policy would reduce Earth’s population down to around 1.6 billion by 2100, about the same as the world population in 1900. Had we kept Earth’s population at that level we would not be having this conversation.”
Who is the “we” Peters mentions that would be assigned to keep the earth’s population at any level? As John P. Holdren, Obama’s science czar, wrote in his monstrosity Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment:
“(…) a Planetary Regime- sort of an international superagency for population, resources, and environment. (…). The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region for arbitrating various countries’ shares within their regional limits. Control of population size might remain the responsibility of each government, but the Regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits.”
Such an agency exists. It is called the United Nations. After all, only a global government with a system-wide, coordinated eugenics-agenda would have the power necessary to impose such laws upon all the peoples of the world. There’s no other way to make it so.
“We can no longer wait for increasing wealth to bring down fertility in remaining high fertility nations; we need policies and incentives to stop growth now”, Peters stated in his article.
“Population growth on earth must cease”, Peters argues again. Citing eugenics-front-man Paul Ehrlich and his equation of death (I = PAT), he attempts to disarm critics of the overpopulation mantra with this spell:
“(…) I represents our impact on the Earth, P equals population, A equals affluence (hence consumption), and T stands for technology.”
Let’s not forget it’s not just professors that advocate global one child policies. CNN founder Ted Turner, who has openly stated the earth would be better off when 95% of the human population would vanish, has also professed his admiration for the Chinese (read: UN) policies. In 2010 the Globe and Mail quoted Turner as saying:
“the environmental stress on the Earth requires radical solutions, suggesting countries should follow China’s lead in instituting a one-child policy to reduce global population over time. He added that fertility rights could be sold so that poor people could profit from their decision not to reproduce.”
This echoes the views of Jeffrey Sachs, Ban Ki-moon’s “sustainability” advisor. In June of 2011, US congressman Chris Smith rightly announced that the UN and China are working hand-in-hand to export China’s one-child policy to Africa. Sachs told AFP newswire in May of that year he “worries” about Africa’s “ballooning population”. Sachs:
“I am really scared about population explosion in Nigeria. It is not healthy. Nigeria should work towards attaining a maximum of three children per family.”
As I reported some time ago, UN strongman Maurice Strong told an audience of environmentalists at a side-event to the 2012 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro that China is the model-state for the rest of the world to emulate in regards to environmental matters.
“What China does matters to the world”, Strong said, “and what China is doing is actually a tremendous source of encouragement.”
Strong went on to say that “sustainable development” has become a “people’s movement guided by the people’s government.”
Strong is a long-time advocate of the sort of draconian population policies that China has forced upon its people. As far back as the early 1970s, Strong hesitatingly admitted to the BBC that such a thing as a license to have a child is the kind of system he would see implemented globally.
Besides these UN hotshots calling for a global one-child policy, low-grade actors from Hollywood have joined the dehumanizing choir. For example, Baywatch “star” Alexandra Paul recently spoke at a TEDX conference, calling not only for a total rewiring of human biology “to recognize the benefits of a one-child family”, but also for the global human population to be brought down to two billion- a 75% reduction compared to current levels.
Paul, who starred in over 70 films and television shows, explicitly states that the entire modern-day culture should serve to convince people to “rewire biology” so that the natural urge to procreate will be changed into a rational, “eco-friendly” one, aspiring to just one child per family.
“Will it (world population) stop growing because of famine, disease, or war over resources- or will it stop growing because people choose to have smaller families- and by smaller families I mean one-child families.”
Although Paul stresses that “forcing people to have fewer children does not work”, she does emphasize that modern culture should be molded in such a way as to convince people that we have to “change and rewire our biology and our culture to recognize the benefits of a one-child family.”
“As a culture we need to emphasize the benefits of having a one-child family so people will choose to have fewer kids.”, she stated.
The Baywatch-”star” explains why she has chosen to not have kids:
“(kids) might be wonderful, but they’re also wasteful.”
Quoting UN population projections, she advocates a fairly massive reduction in human numbers compared to current levels:
“The number of humans on earth needs to go down. And I believe it needs to go down to two billion.”, she said.
She closed her anti-human speech by calling on her listening audience to take her words to heart and quit reproducing after the first child:
“Let’s be part of the solution, and choose from now on to bring forth no more than one child ourselves.”
It’s this kind of dangerous thinking that ultimately leads to brutal policies that are designed to target the most vulnerable.
(Gains Pains and Capital) -The tension between Central Banks that we noted yesterday continues to worsen. This time it was China and the EU, not just Germany, that fired warning shots at the US Fed.
A senior Chinese official said on Friday that the United States should cut back on printing money to stimulate its economy if the world is to have confidence in the dollar.
Asked whether he was worried about the dollar, the chairman of China’s sovereign wealth fund, the China Investment Corporation, Jin Liqun, told the World Economic Forum in Davos: “I am a little bit worried.”
“There will be no winners in currency wars. But it is important for a central bank that the money goes to the right place,” Li said.
Speaking at the same session, French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici voiced concern that the euro was becoming overvalued as a result of quantitative easing and other stimulus actions taken by other nations’ central banks.
“Certainly, the level of the euro is high and creates some problem,” he said, attributing the single currency’s recent gains partly to the return of confidence created by the European Central Bank and euro zone governments in starting to overcome Europe’s debt crisis.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/25/us-davos-currencies-idUSBRE90O10620130125
So first Germany begins pulling its Gold reserves from the US, and now China and the EU are saying publicly that the Fed’s policies are damaging confidence in the US Dollar.
This does not bode well for the financial system. The primary role of Central Banks is to maintain confidence in the system. If the Central Banks begin to turn on one another it is only a matter of time before the system breaks down.
Remember, every time the Fed debases the US Dollar it forces the Euro and other currencies higher, hurting those countries’ exports. The Fed has recently announced it will be printing $85 billion every month until employment reaches 6.5% (obviously the Fed is ignoring the mountains of data that indicate QE doesn’t create jobs).
How long will the other Central Banks tolerate this before they initiate a currency war? Both Germany and China have fired warning shots at the Fed. And we all know that just beneath the veneer of goodwill, tensions are building between the primary players of the global financial system. More importantly, how can investors profit from this? Remember, entire fortunes can be made during times of crises.
This is precisely the sort of “unquantifiable” investment analysis we specialize in with our Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.
With most of the markets dominated by computer programs and Wall Street sharks, the only way to make serious money is by focusing on the opportunities and risks that no computer or group-think Wall Streeter can come up with. If you can do this, you can still making a killing in the markets.
We’re speaking from experience here.
By focusing on investment ideas and portfolio risks that are “unquantifiable” we’ve shown Private Wealth Advisory a success rate of OVER 80% on our investments.
Put another way, we’ve made money on more than eight out of ten investments. This includes a 74 trade-winning streak (from July 2011-July 2012 we didn’t close a single losing trade).
And this is not some flash in the pan either… Private Wealth Advisory has a history of beating the market and locking in serious gains when others are losing their shirts (we saw a 7% gain in 2008 when the markets fell over 30%)
Indeed, I’m so confident in this newsletter that it comes with a 30-day refund period. If you’re not totally satisfied with Private Wealth Advisory in the first month, simply drop us a line and we’ll refund every cent of your subscription.
You’ll have full access to the Private Wealth Advisory archives in that time. You’ll also receive two new hot off the press issues and very likely several trade signals (it’s getting close to time to close out our 7th and 8th straight winners).
To find out more about Private Wealth Advisory and how it can help you beat Wall Street and the market…
City has lost over 25 percent of its population since 2000. People take scrap metal from old buildings to export to China.
(MyBudget360) -One of the biggest examples of the US eroding its working class is through the example of Detroit. The city of Detroit has lost a stunning 25 percent of its population between 2000 and 2010. Poverty is rampant with 3 out of 5 kids living below the poverty line. It is a startling revelation of what can happen to what was the fifth biggest city in the United States and now is merely a shell of itself. There is a documentary, Detropia which grimly shows dilapidated buildings while many tear out scrap metal to sell on the open market. You also hear from citizens trying to make sense of what is occurring. What is stunning is the population of Detroit is now back to levels last seen in the first half of the 1900s. A town built around big US automakers reflects what a country can look like when it loses a big part of its manufacturing base in pursuit of low wage capitalism. The rust belt gives us a clearer perspective as to why we have 47 million Americans on food stamps while the stock market inches closer to record levels.
(BlackListedNews, ZeroHedge) -A week ago we reported that following what China said was a response to counter “Japanese military aircraft disrupting the routine patrols of Chinese administrative aircraft” over the East China Sea, the world’s most populous country (and one which has the largest, 2.25 million strong, standing army) scrambled several jets and put its military on high alert. Now, it is the turn of Japan, and its brand new militant and nationalistic government, to “retaliate” and escalate tensions by one more notch, in the process crashing any hope that Chinese imports of Japanese goods may resume, and obviating the ongoing temporary plunge in the yen (which while doing nothing to boost exports to this 20% trading partner, has made imports so expensive, inflation in the past two months has already soared well above the 2% target for various key goods as previously reported).
Moments ago, Japan says it may fire warning shots and take other measures to keep foreign aircraft from violating its airspace in the latest verbal blast between Tokyo and Beijing that raises concerns that a dispute over hotly contested islands could spin out of control.
Japanese officials made the comments after Chinese fighters tailed its warplanes near the islands recently. The incident is believed to be the first scrambling of Chinese fighters since the tensions began to rise last spring.
According to Chinese media, a pair of J-10 fighters was scrambled after Japanese F-15s began tailing a Chinese surveillance plane near the disputed islands in the East China Sea. China has complained the surveillance flight did not violate Japanese airspace and the F-15s were harassing it.
It was the first time the Chinese media has reported fighters being mobilized to respond to Japanese air force activity in the area and comes amid what Japan says is a rapid intensification of Chinese air force activity around the islands, where Japanese and Chinese coast guard ships have squared off for months.
Though there have been no outright clashes, the increased sea and air operations have fueled worries that the situation could spin out of control.
“Every country has procedures for how to deal with a violation of its territory that continues after multiple cautionary measures,” Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera said on Jan. 16 when asked if tracer shots would be fired against intruding aircraft that refuse to change course. “We have response measures ready that are consistent with global standards.”
Onodera said the use of warning shots has long been provided for under Japan’s defense policies and is widely accepted under international rules of engagement. Japan’s air force has not actually resorted to them since 1987-against a Soviet aircraft-and none were fired last week.
But Chinese and Japanese media have suggested Tokyo is publicly floating the possibility to test China’s reaction.
Perhaps it may surprise Japan, but “China’s reaction” will hardly be one of a dog retreating with its tail between its legs. In fact, it will likely be quite the opposite.
And the fact that the US has once again stepped in, and is once again on the side of the party that started this whole escalation fiasco (that would be Japan for those who have forgotten), will not help:
The escalation of tensions has worried the United States, with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton saying on Jan. 18 that while the U.S. doesn’t take a position on who has sovereignty over the islands, it opposes “any unilateral actions that would seek to undermine Japanese administration.”
That brought a sharp retort from the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Jan. 20. The comments “ignore the facts” that the islands are China’s inherent territory, spokesman Qin Gang said in a statement that urged the U.S. to adopt “a responsible attitude.”
In Beijing last week, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said China is on “high alert” and suggested Japan is escalating the tensions over the islands, called the Diaoyu in China and the Senkaku in Japan. Taiwan also claims the small isles, which are uninhabited but may be surrounded by valuable underwater natural resources.
“Chinese planes and ships are exercising normal jurisdiction in the waters and airspace surrounding the Diaoyu Islands,” spokesman Hong Lei said. “We are opposed to the operations of Japan’s planes and ships, which violate our rights around Diaoyu. We are on high alert against this escalation.”
As is often the case, Chinese media quoted military academics with a much more fiery response.
“Japan’s desire to fire tracer warning shots as a way of frightening the Chinese is nothing but a joke that shows the stupidity, cruelty and failure to understand their own limitations,” Maj. Gen. Peng Guangqian of the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences was quoted as saying by the China News Service and other state media.
“Firing tracer bullets is a type of provocation; it’s firing the first shot,” he said. “Were Japan to dare to fire tracers, which is to say fire the first shot, then China wouldn’t stint on responding and not allow them to fire the second shot.“
Sounds like a catalyst to double down and buy every ES contract in sight: just think of the GDP boost and appropriate fiscal multiplier once Japan is levelled
(DailyTech) -Chinese price manipulation has taken its toll on the U.S. economy
Rare earth metals are an increasingly integral part of everything from automobiles to television sets. But the precious metals are tightly controlled by China, with an excess of 95 percent of current suplly coming from Chinese-owned mines and refineries. The degree of control has allowed China to manipulate prices, cutting back on demand to sell less material for the same amount of profit, any businessperson’s dream.
I. New Private-Public Partnership Sets Aim on Chinese Mineral Hegemony
The problem is that it takes several years or more to bring rare earth metal mines and refineries online; and the capital costs of such facilities are very high. It took China decades of clever planning to set itself in its current peachy position of rare earth hegemony. Now the U.S. is racing to try to recover, before Chinese price manipulation deals too much of a blow to the U.S. economy.
The U.S. Department of Energy has committed a relatively large investment of $120M USD to establish an Energy Innovation Hub under the supervision of Ames Labs to research ways to expand domestic rare earth production and otherwise cut reliance on Chinese rare earth supplies.
The new lab, dubbed the Critical Materials Institute (CMI), will be a joint effort between a number of large domestic firms in the private sector, universities, and top government research labs.
In addition to Ames Lab, other national labs involved include Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). On the university side, major contributors will include Brown Univ., the Colorado School of Mines (CSM), Purdue Univ., Rutgers Univ., Univ. of California-Davis (UC Davis), Iowa State Univ. (IA State), and the Florida Industrial and Phosphate Research Institute.
Corporate partners include General Electric Comp. (GE), OLI Systems Inc., Spintek Filtration, Advanced Recovery, Inc., Cytec Industries, Inc. (CYT), Molycorp Inc. (MCP), and Simbol, Inc. (Simbol Minerals).
II. Attacking the Problem From All Angles
Among the research projects will be:
Top targets for domestic rare earth production include neodymium — used in neodymium iron boron (NeFeB) hard drive magnets and cell phone components — and samarium — used in samarium cobalt (SmCo) drive magnets. Currently the U.S. has no domestic neodymium producers and only one domestic samarium producer.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) in a 2011 research report [PDF] suggests that the U.S. rare earth supply chain, phased out in the 1980s at a time when the 17-element family looked non-critical, will take approximately 15 years to rebuild. The new lab aims to assist in that slow and arduous recovery.
The U.S. also will continue to purse action against China before the World Trade Organization (WTO) where it has filed complaints about the Chinese price manipulation.
(Gawker) -As it turns out, Jackie Chan is not very grateful to the country that helped him roundhouse kick his way into an estimated $130 million fortune. Speaking on a television show in Hong Kong, Chan had some harsh words for the good ol’ U. S. of A.
Chan was discussing recent progress China has made, removing corruption from its government (with limited success) when he called America “the most corrupt [country] in the world.” Chan then continues (as translated by Ministry of Tofu), blaming America for the world’s troubles and spouting some seriously nationalistic nonsense:
Chan: Of course. Where does this Great Breakdown (financial crisis) come from? It started exactly from the world, the United States. When I was interviewed in the U.S., people asked me, I said the same thing. I said now that China has become strong, everyone is making an issue of China. If our own countrymen don’t support our country, who will support our country? We know our country has many problems. We [can] talk about it when the door is closed. To outsiders, [we should say] “our country is the best.”
Host: So he can’t get enough of his more than 20 ambassador titles. I think the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should ask him to be the ambassador to the United States.
Chan: Seriously, I am always like, when the door is closed, “Our country is like this and this. Who and who is not good.” But outside, “Our country is the best, like so and so, is the best.” You cannot say our country has problems [when you are outside], like “Yes, our country is bad.”
As the Washington Post‘s Max Fisher points out, Chen has a history of controversial political views. Chan once called Taiwan and Hong Kong examples of what happens when you have “too much freedom.” He also once said “Chinese people need to be controlled, otherwise they will do whatever they want,” regarding Chinese censorship of his movies.
(Mac Salvo) -United Nations agricultural experts are reporting confusion, after figures show that China imported 2.6 million tons of rice in 2012, substantially more than a four-fold increase over the 575,000 tons imported in 2011.
The confusion stems from the fact that there is no obvious reason for vastly increased imports, since there has been no rice shortage in China. The speculation is that Chinese importers are taking advantage of low international prices, but all that means is that China’s own vast supplies of domestically grown rice are being stockpiled.
Why would China suddenly be stockpiling millions of tons of rice for no apparent reason?
Perhaps it’s related to China’s aggressive military buildup and war preparations in the Pacific and in central Asia.
If a 400% year-over-year increase in rice stockpiles isn’t enough to convince you the Chinese are preparing for a significant near-term event, consider that in Australia the country’s two major baby formula distributors have reported they are unable to keep up with demand for their dry milk formula products.
Grocery stores throughout the countryhave been left empty of the essential infant staple as a result of bulk exports by the Chinese.
A surge in sales of one of Australia’s most popular brands of infant formula has led to an unusual sight for this wealthy nation: barren shelves in the baby aisle and even rationing of baby food in some leading retail outlets.
We’d be more apt to believe the Chinese were panic-buying baby formula had the Chinese milk scandal occurred recently. The problem is that it happened four years ago. Are we to believe the Chinese are just now realizing their baby food may be tainted?
In addition to the apparent build-up in food stocks, the Chinese are further diversifying their cash assets (denominated in US Dollars) into physical goods.
In fact, in just a single month in 2012, the Chinese imported and stockpiled more gold than the entirety of the gold stored in the vaults of the European Central Bank (and did we mention they did this in one month?).
Their precious metals stockpiles have grown so quickly in recent years that Chinese official holdings remain a complete mystery to Western governments and it’s rumored that the People’s Republic may now be the second largest gold hoarding nation in the world, behind the United States.
We won’t know for sure until the official disclosure which will come when China is ready and not a moment earlier, but at the current run-rate of accumulation which is just shy of 1,000 tons per year, it is certainly within the realm of possibilities that China is now the second largest holder of gold in the world, surpassing Germany’s 3,395 tons and second only to the US.
But the Chinese aren’t just buying precious metals. They’re rapidly acquiring industrial metalsas well.
Spot iron prices are up to an almost 15-month high at $153.90 per tonne. The rally in prices, which started in December 2012, is mainly due to China’s rebuilding of its stockpiles as the Asian giant gears to boost its economy, which in turn, could improve steel demand.
The official explanation, that China is preparing stockpiles in anticipation of an economic recovery, is quite amusing considering that just 8 months ago Reuters reported that China had an oversupply, so much so that their storage facilities had run out of room to store all the inventory!
When metals warehouses in top consumer China are so full that workers start stockpiling iron ore in granaries and copper in car parks, you know the global economy could be in trouble.
At Qingdao Port, home to one of China’s largest iron ore terminals, hundreds of mounds of iron ore, each as tall as a three-storey building, spill over into an area signposted “grains storage” and almost to the street.
Further south, some bonded warehouses in Shanghai are using carparks to store swollen copper stockpiles – another unusual phenomenon that bodes ill for global metal prices and raises questions about China’s ability to sustain its economic growth as the rest of the world falters.
Now, why would China be stockpiling even more iron (and setting 15 month price highs in the process) if they had massive amounts of excess inventory just last year?
Something tells us this has nothing to do with an economic recovery, or even economic theory in terms of popular mainstream analysis.
Why does China need four times as much rice year-over-year? Why purchase more iron when you already have a huge surplus?
Why buy gold when, as Federal Reserve Chairmen Ben Bernanke suggests, it is not real money? Why build massive cities capable of housing a million or more people, and then keep them empty?
It doesn’t add up. None of it makes any sense.
Unless the Chinese know something we haven’t been made privy to.
Is it possible, in a world where hundreds of trillions of dollars are owed, where the United States indirectly controls most of the globe’s oil reserves, and where super powers have built tens of thousands of nuclear weapons and spent hundreds of billions on weapons of war (real ones, not those pesky semi-automatic assault rifles), that the Chinese expect things to take a turn for the worse in the near future?
The Chinese are buying physical assets – and not just representations of those assets in the form of paper receipts – but the actual physical commodities. And they are storing them in-country. Perhaps they’ve determined that U.S. and European debt are a losing proposition and it’s only a matter of time before the financial, economic and monetary systems of the West undergo a complete collapse.
At best, what these signs indicate is that the People’s Republic of China is expecting the value of currencies ( they have trillions in Western currency reserves) will deteriorate with respect to physical commodities. They are stocking up ahead of the carnage and buying what they can before their savings are hyper-inflated away.
At worst, they may very well be getting ready for what geopolitical analyst Joel Skousen warned of in his documentary Strategic Relocation, where he argued that some time in the next decade the Chinese and Russians may team up against the United States in a thermo-nuclear showdown.
Hard to believe? Maybe.
But consider that China is taking measures now, in addition to their stockpiling, that suggest we are already in the opening salvos of World War III. They have already taken steps to map our entire national grid – that includes water, power, refining, commerce and transportation infrastructure.
They’re directly involved in hacking government and commercial networks and are responsible for what has been called the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of the world. Militarily, the PRC has been developing technology like EMP weapons systems, capable of disabling our military fleets and the electrical infrastructure of the country as a whole, and has been caught red-handed manufacturing fake computer chips used in U.S. Navy weapons systems.
If you still doubt China’s intentions and expectations, look to other governments, including our own, for signs that someone, somewhere is planning for horrific worst-case scenarios:
Perhaps there’s a reason why former Congressman Roscoe Bartlett has warned, “those who can, should move their families out of the city.”
As Kyle Bass noted in a recent speech, “it’s just a question of when will this unravel and how will it unravel.”
Given how similar events have played out in history, we think you know how this ends.
Governments around the world are stockpiling food, supplies, precious metals and arms, suggesting that there is foreknowledge of an impending event.
Should we be doing the same?
The surgery involves drilling into the human skull and killing part of the brain. [Image Source: HomeZooka]The surgery is primarily used on cocaine and heroine addicts, but could apply to serious addicts of other kinds, including internet addicts and overeaters.
The surgery is officially banned by the Chinese Ministry of Health, which outlawed it in 2004 on the grounds of insufficient evidence of its safety. However, a report by TIME claims that the surgery has been performed 1,000 times since. Even government hospitals appear to be involved; the military Tangdu Hospital in Xi’an published a study on the procedure’s effectiveness in the peer-reviewed Journal of Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery.
Ablation typically targets the nucleus accumbens, a reward center. [Image Source: CUNY]The procedure is general referred to as “ablative surgery” — destroying part of the brain to try to cure it from some form of mental illness, such addiction.
According to the study, from a pure statistical perspective the surgery works better than any alternative. Traditional treatment for opiate addicts only achieves a 30 to 40 percent “cure” rate at best — 60 to 70 percent of addicts relapse. But with the surgery 47 percent of addicts (out of 60 patients who received the treatment) remained drug free five years later, while only 53 percent relapsed.
But the cure comes at a cost, the authors admit. Of the patients receiving the treatment, 60 percent experienced some side effects. Most common was a change in personality. Roughly 53 percent of the patients experienced such a change, with most becoming more “mildness oriented”. Memory loss was also experienced by 21 percent of patients, and motivation loss by 18 percent.
II. U.S. Experts are Mortified
Experts are not convinced the cost is worth the slightly higher cure rates. David Linden, professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University and author of “The Compass of Pleasure” called the procedure “horribly misguided”, commenting to TIME, “This treatment will almost certainly render the subjects unable to feel pleasure from a wide range of experiences, not just drugs alone.”
In China, where thousands of drug traffickers are executed a year, kicking the habit could be life-saving. But the procedure is not free — it costs around $8,400 USD, or about the amount an average Chinese citizen makes in an entire year .
And more alarmingly, similar electroshock procedures are being applied to patients with other conditions like depression, with much lower success rates. Dr. Wang Yifang No. 454 Hospital of the People’s Liberation Army in Nanjing admitted in a recent Wall Street Journal interview to performing ablative surgery 1,000 times. Most of his patients suffered from schizophrenia, but also patients suffering from depression and epilepsy.
Chinese surgeons are performing the procedure at a rate critics call “alarming”. [Image Source: Xinhua]Dr. Wang defends his procedure saying that he is performing a service to society. He states, “In many of the mental disease hospitals 30 to 50 percent of patients cannot be treated by medicine. And these patients have caused a great burden to their families and society.”
Dr. Michael Shulder, a top neurosurgeon at Newark University Hospital in New Jersey, indicates that very rarely such procedures are warranted, but he said that the sheer number of patients Dr. Wang performed the surgery on was astonishing. He said that to do ablative surgery on over 1,000 patients was “completely off the charts” and that even 10 would be considered “highly controversial.”
III. Ablative Surgery Debate Echoes Lobotomy Debate of Decades Past
Decades ago the world grappled with the risk versus reward blunt dissection lobotomies — surgeries to remove part of the frontal cortex. For showing the therapeutic effects of lobotomizing the mentally ill António Egas Moniz won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1949. In decades following almost 20,000 lobotomies were performed. But by the 1970s, the U.S. banned the procedure after evidence of the severe side effects it caused emerged.
In just three decades lobotomies went from being worthy of a Nobel Prize to being shunned by the U.S. medical community. [Image Source: IBN Live]By contrast, ablative surgery is far more targeted — but it still is killing a part of the body’s most delicate piece of machinery. The real problem is that in the U.S. and UK only about two dozen ablative surgeries are performed a year (typically on people with certain kinds of severe depression; never on drug addicts). And there are differences between those surgeries and the new addiction therapy surgeries being performed in China. Thus the population size may be too small and specific to draw thorough conclusions about the procedure’s success rates and side effects.
About the only nation that appears to be in a position to, for better or worse, give a thorough analysis is China. But some allege that such information may be impossible to attain, as they accuse the Chinese medical community of pervasive academic misconduct.
Shi-Min Fang — a biochemist-turned-freelance writer who formally held positions at the University of Rochester in New York and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif. — tells The New York Times, “The results of clinical research in China are very often fabricated. I suspect that the approvals by Ethics Committee mentioned in these papers were made up to meet the publication requirement. I also doubt if the patients were really informed in detail about the nature of the study.”
In other words, even if Chinese doctors say ablative surgery is working great, the truth could be a different animal altogether.
This news apparently surfaced online recently, when a Chinese blogger released the information. The blogger, known as “Langmanhongchen”, blogged that his friend’s daughter attended the Shangmao Kindergarten in the Jiangdu District of the city, and that the school was charging 80 yuan a month for the so-called “hugging fee”.
Part of his blog read, “Parents were told by teachers that hugging will put their children in a good mood.”
According to some parents, they thought the charge was officially called a “quality education fee”, and while they knew that the teachers hugged their children, they had no idea it was a prepaid option.
According to the school, hugs are one component of a quality education, aimed at making children feel loved, secure and more confident.
All well and good, but the local school board has found that this practice violates educational rules. Officials say that if the information about the fee is confirmed by investigators, the school will have to return the money to the parents.
The investigation is apparently still ongoing.
(IBITimes) -Talk of the United States losing its sole superpower status is nothing new, but a new intelligence report puts a date on when that might happen: It’s just 18 years away.
The National Intelligence Council on Monday released its report Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds, which states that by that time “no country – whether the U.S., China, or any other large nation – will be a hegemonic power.”
Researchers believe that global economy, governance, conflict, regional instability, technology, and the role of the United States will be the six “game-changers” shaping the world about 20 years from now.
“We are at a critical juncture in human history, which could lead to widely contrasting futures,” wrote Christopher Kojm, chairman of the Council.
In terms of global power, the report said Asia will surpass North America and Europe combined. This is based on indicators such as GDP, population size, military spending and technological investment. China is also expected to have the largest economy a couple years before 2030.
What this all means is that China will be influencing power on a scale that only the U.S. would have done, said Thomas Whalen, professor at Boston University.
“And they won’t need an army [to do it],” he said.
Whalen also sees – as in the Greek crisis – other nations looking to Beijing for answers on how to get out of a financial crisis.
In 2010, when Greece was struggling to prevent a default on its debt, China took a chance on the country while others stayed clear, making hundreds of millions in investments in the country’s telecommunications, real estate and shipping industries.
“This will give China tremendous clout in every nation,” he said, adding that the ascendance of a (currently, at least) nondemocratic new power could affect the spreading of democracy across the world: “That kind of leaves Democracy in the lurch.”
He also suspects that America’s big influence on the arts and fashion may diminish.
“The U.S. has set the trend and popular world taste,” Whalen said. “It will be pretty interesting.”
What is even more interesting is that the Council predicts a growing middle class with more affluence, better education and more access to health care.
“The growth of the global middle class constitutes a tectonic shift: For the first time, a majority of the world’s population will not be impoverished, and the middle classes will be the most important social and economic sector in the vast majority of countries around the world,” the report read.
But it is not all doom and gloom for the U.S. Despite the status downgrade, the world may still need to rely on America, which is expected to become energy independent.
(StratRisks) -Taiwan is planning to make a new generation of “smart” mines that can be deployed in shallow water to boost its defences against a potential invasion by China, Taiwanese media said on Thursday.
Unlike earlier naval mines meant for deeper water, the new type can be deployed closer to the coastline and be more effective in beating off enemy landings, said the United Daily News website, citing unnamed military sources.
Taiwan’s west coast features a large number of estuaries, adding to the island’s vulnerability, as an attacker does not have to invade across the beaches but can also move upriver and disembark further inland.
A defence ministry spokesman, who declined to comment on this particular project, said “smart” mines sense vessels nearby and do not have to be touched in order to go off.
Three other types of naval mines developed by Taiwan since the late 1980s are meant for deeper waters, targeting for example enemy submarines, and they lack the flexibility of shallow water mines, the report said.
The defence ministry has alloted a budget to start developing the new mines from next year, it added, without specifying the amount of money earmarked for the purpose.
It was unclear how far the development of the mine had progressed and if a prototype already existed.
China has repeatedly threatened to invade Taiwan should the island declare formal independence, prompting Taipei to develop more advanced weapons or seek to buy them from abroad.
(Derek Wood) - We’ve all seen, read, or at least heard about the widespread panic of Black Friday! People lined up for hours, as big box stores open up their doors to the note of clamoring footsteps. As the mindless zombies trample over each other to gain entry into Satan’s bed. As they threaten one another with guns to go buy guns for the best price possible. Yanking each other’s hair, pulling on clothing to get the latest electronic gadget. Kicking and screaming and stomping so they can get a skinnier, cooler, and better picture resolution TV than the one they bought last year. Hell, and just to add to the hysteria of satan’s little helpers why not leave little two-year old satan unattended while poppa satan looks for an Xbox.
This is the madness that American consumers have become. The atmosphere is created before the people arrive. “We are opening our doors at 8pm on Thanksgiving, so be sure to get here early and kill each other for the best deal possible.” Last year’s top-selling items for BF were mostly electronic items. These aren’t exactly essentials to life such as having rent money, electricity, food, and clothing. However, if all you do is play on the Xbox, watch TV, text your friends then I suppose those aforementioned items are essential.
Don’t expect it to get better. A recent study and report suggests that it’s not your crazy momma’s shopping holiday anymore. Nope, it has passed onto the next generation. Business Insider came out with a story the day of Black Friday offering possible reasons for this shift.
1. Young people can handle the shopping marathon because they have more stamina.
2. They were targeted
3. Since Satan decided to open up on Thanksgiving night they are the one’s who are awake.
I have my own speculation as to why they are the new demographic for this zombie driven event. The journal Pediatrics conducted a study that found a typical American infant is exposed to 5 and a half hours of background television per day. They are doomed before they walk. They are declared zombies before they know how to spit canned vegetables. They are sucked into the corporate vacuum before they say their first words and don’t be surprise if their first words are “Ipad.”
So forgive the Wal Mart workers who wanted to spend time with their family instead of dealing with madmen. Speaking of Wal Mart employees this year had the potential of sending a message but when the public doesn’t support the family values as it used to you are pretty much dead on arrival. Wal Mart reports great numbers and the workers still have no leverage. The same workers who see their hours slashed, their pay on-average below $10/per hour, and receive little to no benefits.
America keep buying them goods made overseas. Keep behaving in a way that shows the rest of the world how pathetic we’ve become as a society. Keep your television’s loud. Don’t hangout with your friends down the street text them instead. Don’t buy a real book go on your kindle and read. And whatever you do don’t put down the phone! As a matter of fact why even leave the store?
Americans will keep spending money they don’t have on things they don’t need. This behavior will be passed on to future generations. You’ll see Gaza like conflicts once every year. People will be trampled, kids will be hooked on the latest technological devices, workers and family will be screwed, and Mr. Satan Box himself will reap the benefits as he laughs his profits to the bank.
(CNSNews.com) – The White House announced the federal government will spend $6 billion over four years for a “sustainable energy future” plan with Asian countries that involves loaning tax dollars to other countries to increase their purchasing power for U.S. technology, services and equipment.
“Recognizing that energy and the environment are among the most pressing issues confronting our region, President Obama, in partnership with Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei and President of the Republic of Indonesia Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, today proposed the U.S.-Asia Pacific Comprehensive Partnership for a Sustainable Energy Future,” the White House announced Tuesday as Obama visits Asian Pacific countries.
The initiative comes after the Obama administration has been criticized for spending billions to subsidize U.S.-based green energy companies that went on to declare bankruptcy, including Solyndra, Ener1, A123, Beacon Power and other failed renewable energy ventures.
The White House announcement goes on to say that, “The United States will provide up to $6 billion to support the partnership.” Most of that will come from the U.S. Export-Import Bank, which will launch a $5 billion export credit financing program to certain Asian countries over the next four years “to increase access to American technology, services and equipment to implement energy infrastructure.”
The Overseas Private Investment Corps (OPIC) will spend $1 billion in financing for sustainable power and clean energy infrastructure projects in Asia, according to the White House. OPIC is the federal government’s development finance institution that mobilizes private capital with the intent of advancing U.S. foreign policy and getting U.S. companies into emerging markets.
The State Department will oversee a $1 million energy capacity building fund to support the U.S.-Asia energy partnership activities.
The U.S. Trade and Development Agency will support Asian power generation and distribution, according to the White House, but the White House news release does not estimate how much money the USTDA will spend on the project.
The White House estimates $9 trillion in investment for electricity will be needed through 2035 to meet the increasing demand in the region, which offers potential for U.S. industry.
“The Partnership will drive investment and facilitate progress on four key regional priorities: renewables and cleaner energy; markets and interconnectivity; the emerging role of natural gas; and sustainable development,” the White House release said. “We will engage with the private sector as well as partner countries in the region to determine specific projects within these four priority areas.”
(ChinaDaily) A “renminbi bloc” has been formed in East Asia, as nations in the region abandon the US dollar and peg their currency to the Chinese yuan — a major signal of China’s successful bid to internationalize its currency, a research report has said.
The Peterson Institute for International Economics, or PIIE, said in its latest research that China has moved closer to its long-term goal for the renminbi to become a global reserve currency.
Since the global financial crisis, the report said, more and more nations, especially emerging economies, see the yuan as the main reference currency when setting their exchange rate.
And now seven out of 10 economies in the region — including South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand — track the renminbi more closely than they do the US dollar. Only three economies in the group — Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Mongolia — still have currencies following the dollar more closely than the renminbi, said the report, posted on the institute’s website.
The South Korean won, for example, has appreciated in sync with the renminbi against the dollar since mid-2010.
China has long vowed to raise its currency’s global sway, along with the rise of its economy, which became the world’s second-biggest last year.
The goal has seen significant development in recent years as the country promotes renminbi-denominated cross-border trade and gradually loosens control over its capital accounts.
As a result, Hong Kong has quickly risen to be the world’s biggest offshore renminbi trading center, with about 600 billion yuan ($95 billion) in deposits.
According to the latest report by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT, renminbi-denominated trade accounted for 10 percent of China’s total foreign trade in July. The figure was zero just two years ago.
From July 1 to Aug 31, global payments in the renminbi rose 15.6 percent, according to SWIFT, as payments in other currencies fell 0.9 percent on average.
The renminbi had a market share of 0.53 percent in August and has overtaken the Danish krone to become the 14th-highest global payment currency, the member-owned cooperative said.
Cross-border trade settled in renminbi will triple to 6.5 trillion yuan ($1.03 trillion) within three years as relations with the world’s second-largest economy grow, Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC was quoted as saying by Bloomberg on Oct 9.
Settlements will grow 12 to 20 percent this year, reaching $1.03 trillion in two years, up from $330.8 billion in 2011, said Janet Ming, head of the China desk for RBS in Europe, Middle East and Africa.
“We’re seeing a lot more customers starting to practice in renminbi,” Ming was quoted as saying by Bloomberg. “For most companies and banks, China and India is where the growth is. If you’re dealing with China, ignoring renminbi is not the right thing to do.”
Wang Jianhui, chief economist with Southwest Securities Co Ltd, agreed. “Investors are looking for new reserve currencies at a time when both the dollar and euro are under pressure. This is a good opportunity for the yuan,” he said.
The Royal Bank of Scotland predicted in a report on Monday that renminbi will become a fully convertible currency in 2015.
The PIIE said that renminbi could rise to the status of an international currency in 10 to 15 years if the country can reform its financial market and allow greater access for foreigners via capital account liberalization.
Forming the new renminbi bloc is the result of China’s rise as the main trading partner in the region. China’s share in East Asian countries’ manufacturing trade has risen from 2 percent in 1991 to about 22 percent this year, according to the PIIE report.
In fact, trade is also propelling the rise of the renminbi outside East Asia. The currencies of India, Chile, Israel, South Africa and Turkey all now follow the renminbi closely, in some cases, more so than the dollar. The renminbi would be more attractive if the country could further liberalize its financial and currency markets, the report said.
Some fear that China might follow Japan’s rise and fall over the past decades, but the institute thinks otherwise.
“They should take note that even during the heady days of the Japanese miracle, the yen never came close to rivaling the dollar as a reference currency. There was never anything close to a yen bloc in East Asia,” the report said.
Join Our Daily Newsletter 