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As you can see in the Google Maps image above, the airfield (located about 300 miles from Qingdao, the homeport of China's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning) is freshly built and the northern end of the runway features a fake carrier flight deck that appears to be used to practice carrier landings (there are clear skid marks on the landing area). The southern end of the runway features two "ski-jump" ramps that are likely used by pilots to rehearse taking off from Liaoning's bow-mounted ramp. (Notice how only one of these ramps is complete in the imagery above while the...

The Indian Navy plans to deploy its medium-range Dornier surveillance aircraft at its furthest air station at Campbell Bay in the Andaman and Nicobar islands to keep a regular watch on the oil and cargo traffic passing through the strategic Malacca Strait and two other crucial sea lanes used to ferry these materials to China and South East Asia. Almost a year after a 3,500 ft runway was made operational at the “INS Baaz” – the Navy’s eastern most air station in the Campbell Bay – Defence Minister AK Antony told the navy commanders on Tuesday to go ahead with...

North Koreans holding Chinese boat for ransom By William Wan, Published: May 20 BEIJING — Armed North Koreans are holding a Chinese fishing boat and its crew for ransom despite the protests of Chinese officials, the boat’s owner said Monday. The boat’s seizure — which occurred early this month but was revealed by Chinese officials only Sunday night — is the latest dust-up between North Korea and China, which Pyongyang has long relied on to prop up its economy and defend it from international censure efforts by the United States and others.

TEL AVIV, Israel, May 17 (UPI) -- Nobel Energy of Houston, which discovered Israel's big natural gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean, is pressing the government to decide on an energy export policy as the prospect of an undersea pipeline to Turkey gains credibility. Israel's deep-water Tamar field, found in 2009 and containing an estimated 9 trillion-10 trillion cubic feet of gas, began production March 31. But Nobel and Israeli partner Delek Energy, the team that discovered Tamar and other fields off Israel, is reluctant to develop the much bigger Leviathan field, found in 2010, until it the government makes...

A group of North Koreans claim to have hijacked a Chinese fishing boat, are holding hostages, and demand some 600,000 yuan in ransoms. The initial hijacking took place on May 6, but authorities are struggling to pin down exactly what happened. They are investigating the boat owner's claims that his ship and its crew were taken, but officials have been silent. North Korea isn't just fun-runs and basketball stars; there is a serious concern that the hijackers were in the nation's military, and may be harming their prisoners, as South China Morning Post reports: Yu [the boat owner] was not...

Word is that both Israel and Turkey are seriously entertaining the notion of constructing an undersea pipeline to deliver Israeli natural gas to Turkey and, perhaps, hence to Europe. The Turks reportedly have expressed willingness to foot part of the estimated $2 billion bill. Such pipelines exist elsewhere in the world, most notably from Russia and from Norway. It is becoming evident that a veiled agenda underpinned the recent Turkish willingness to consider a rapprochement with Israel. Turkey, it appears, hankers after Israeli gas. The perceived Turkish softening was fueled by Israel’s offshore gas discoveries, a fact which nevertheless did...

Commodities Boom to be Driven by the Urbanisation of 1 Billion More People Commodities / Demographics May 18, 2013 - 07:11 PM By: Richard Mills Many, many years ago during a lengthy argument with a friend he told me to 'give it a doubt' - he meant I was wrong. The herd is convinced the commodities boom is over. Doom and gloom, the sky is falling, the bears argument sounds convincing - growth has stopped, economies are slowing. Looking at the TSX.V's performance (most of the world's mineral exploration firms call the Venture Exchange home) it's as if people are...

A new investigation released by Wall Street Daily just revealed a disturbing pattern of price manipulation in the energy markets. The six-month investigation, conducted by renowned energy analyst, Karim Rahemtulla, was triggered by the incredible disparity in gas prices between the United States and Europe. The price of natural gas in the United States is presently about $4/mcf. Yet the price in Europe is upwards of $15/mcf. “Such mispricing simply cannot occur in an efficient market,” says Rahemtulla. For the global economy to function properly, the energy markets must be priced efficiently. It can be no other way. Any malfeasance...

Afghanistan expects to begin the first commercial oil production in its history in a little under two months. The country's mining minister, Wahidullah Shahrani, has told the ABC processing will start at the Amu Darya basin in Afghanistan's north in July. The project is operated by the China National Petroleum Corporation and is expected to eventually supply Afghanistan with its domestic energy needs so it can stop importing oil. Mr Shahrani is in Australia for talks with Government officials and to attend mining development conferences in Sydney next week.

By 2030, roughly two-thirds of the world’s middle class will be in the Asia Pacific region, largely in China, according to a report by Ernst & Young. Currently at around 150 million people, the Chinese middle class is expected to reach 1 billion. Representing a $250 billion market for American companies today, according to the U.S.-China Business Council estimates the country, it’s worth noting the American companies that can take advantage of the enormous opportunity. Some of the nation’s biggest brands have already managed to be the Chinese market leaders in their particular segments. Apple sells more tablets than any...

UKIP leader Nigel Farage has been escorted away from demonstrators in a police riot van during a campaign trip in Edinburgh. Mr Farage was heckled by protesters as he was promoting the UKIP candidate in a Scottish by-election. As he was holding a news conference inside the Canons' Gait pub on the Royal Mile, just yards from the Scottish Parliament, he was surrounded by dozens of protesters shouting insults at him - some calling him "racist" and "scum". Bar staff were forced to clear the pub and the protest spilled outside, obstructing Mr Farage's exit. The UKIP leader attempted to...

China is attempting to open a new front in its territorial dispute with Japan by questioning Tokyo's sovereignty over the island of Okinawa, home to 25,000 US troops. The two countries are already pushing rival claims to the Senkakus, a chain of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea that are controlled by Tokyo. The dispute over the islands, known as the Diaoyu in China, has hit bilateral trade and sent diplomatic relations to their lowest point for decades. Beijing began its attempt to broaden the territorial dispute earlier this month when the communist party newspaper, the People's Daily, ran...

Academics from Britain and China claim to have found links between Neolithic cave paintings and the Dongba religion of Yunnan Province. The latest research establishes a pattern that reveals the origins of Dongba writings going back 7,000 years. This crucial evidence is now on display at the UK’s Northhampton University. For thousands of years, locked away in the mountainous province of Yunnan, Dongba has been the main religion of the Naxi people. Even today it uses an ancient pictograph–based language to document its culture – the world’s only surviving form of such a writing. Now studies of Neolithic cave paintings...

An underground workshop producing fake brand-name condoms was busted after police found clues on an online marketplace. Two owners of the workshop and more than 10 of their workers were detained in Jinjiang, Fujian province, during a raid on March 29, said an officer surnamed He with the city's public security bureau. The police announced the details of the case on Tuesday after they finished an initial investigation. Police confiscated more than 2 million bogus condoms labeled Jissbon, Durex and Contex in the factory and its warehouse. While a knock-off prophylactic is priced at 1 yuan (16 cents), it costs...

An outspoken nationalist mayor said the Japanese military's forced prostitution of Asian women before and during World War II was necessary to "maintain discipline" in the ranks and provide rest for soldiers who risked their lives in battle. The comments made Monday are already raising ire in neighboring countries that bore the brunt of Japan's wartime aggression and have long complained that Japan has failed to fully atone for wartime atrocities.

An outspoken nationalist mayor said the Japanese military's forced prostitution of Asian women before and during World War II was necessary to "maintain discipline" in the ranks and provide rest for soldiers who risked their lives in battle. The comments made Monday are already raising ire in neighboring countries that bore the brunt of Japan's wartime aggression and that have long complained that Japan has failed to fully atone for wartime atrocities. Toru Hashimoto, the young, brash mayor of Osaka who is also co-leader of an emerging conservative political party, also told reporters that there wasn't clear evidence that the...

SEOUL, May 13 (Yonhap) -- China's latest move of cutting ties with a key North Korean bank is a "very interesting and hopeful sign" that Beijing may be taking a tougher stance on the communist country, the top U.S. envoy on North Korea policy said Monday. Glyn Davies, the U.S. special representative for North Korea policy, made the remarks at a Seoul airport upon his arrival ahead of talks on Tuesday with South Korean officials to discuss ways to deal with North Korea following last week's summit talks between their leaders. In a move seen by analysts as indicating that...

For decades, it seemed that most countries of the Levant, east of the Mediterranean Sea, had little or no share of the Middle East's abundant energy resources. Israelis even had a joke about how Moses led his people through the desert for 40 years to reach the one place in the region with no oil. But in the past few years, there have been offshore discoveries of gas and possibly oil that look set to open up new economic possibilities. In future, they could also redefine strategic relationships. A 2010 US Geological Survey report estimated that there were 122 trillion...

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a critical U.S. ally in the Muslim world, is struggling with the crisis in Syria, which has strained his country’s fast-growing economy, swamped it with hundreds of thousands of refugees and created unusually public friction with Washington. The urgency of Erdogan’s concerns over Syria was underscored by Saturday’s car bombings that killed 46 people in the Turkish border town of Reyhanli, where thousands of Syrian refugees have taken shelter. Erdogan’s government blamed the blasts on the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — an allegation that Syrian officials quickly denied. snip

Turkish Hattat Holding and China-based Harbin Electric International signed a deal to build a coal-based power plant in northwestern Turkey on May 10. The plant is planned to have a capacity of 2,640 megawatts (MW) in total. Around $2.4 billion will be invested in the project, Hattat Holding Chairman Mehmet Hattat said at the signature ceremony. Hattat Holding had been in talks with a number of Chinese, South Korean and Westerns firm to build a new coal-fired thermal power plant in the region for a while. The Harbin Electric International Project Director expressed his satisfaction with the deal. “We produce...

"This is called slave labor," said Pope Francis. The Holy Father was referring to the $40 a month paid to apparel workers at that eight-story garment factory in Bangladesh that collapsed on top of them, killing more than 400. "Not paying a just wage ... focusing exclusively on the balance books, on financial statements, only looking at personal profit. That goes against God!" The pope is describing the dark side of globalism Why is Bangladesh, after China, the second-largest producer of apparel in the world? Why are there 4,000 garment factories in that impoverished country which, a few decades ago,...

For the second time in three years, U.S. Attorneys have sought to prosecute foreign nationals at NASA on national security grounds, only to dramatically reverse course and shut down their investigations. Most recently, federal prosecutors abruptly ended their case on May 3 against Bo Jiang, a Chinese citizen and former NASA contractor at the agency's Langley Research Center. Jiang had been arrested March 16 when federal agents intercepted him at Dulles International Airport as he tried to board a one-way flight for China. He was carrying two laptops and associated equipment. But in the end, the authorities accepted a plea...

Secretary of State John Kerry called Friday for greater efforts to "unfreeze" decades of tense stalemate between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus, after meeting here with the foreign minister of the divided Mediterranean island. "The United States supports a bi-zonal, bicommunal federation. We would like to see us unfreeze this conflict and be able to move to a resolution," Kerry told reporters after meeting here with his Cypriot counterpart Ioannis Kasoulides. "We also look forward to working with the foreign minister, and with President (Nicos) Anastasiades and others to try to move Cyprus forward on one of the world's frozen...

TEL AVIV, Israel, May 9 (UPI) -- Israel's rapprochement with onetime strategic ally Turkey is a vital element in Ankara's drive to become the intercontinental east-west energy hub in the Mediterranean and many expect it to produce an energy alliance that will transform the region. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan has, since taking power in 2002, transformed his country's economic prospects through a wide-ranging diplomatic drive aimed at restoring Turkish leadership in the region. He has long sought to transform Turkey, which has no energy resources of its own, into the unassailable central hub for transporting oil and gas...

On Fox Business’ Varney and Company today, Stuart Varney asked me about mortgage foreclosures. Are they ending? I said sure, “As long as The Fed doesn’t take away the punch bowl.” Will The Fed take away the punch bowl? Not likely. Sputh Korea just reduced their interest rate making it the 511th rate cut by a Central Bank since June 2007. That’s a whole lot of rate cuts! Sovereign rates are dropping towards the zero barrier. But the GDP growth rates in Europe are stagnant at best. At least China and Australia are experiencing above 3% real GDP growth. In...

As a general rule, corporations should be able to build plants where they want, whether it’s in America or elsewhere. Moreover, if they choose to go overseas, we should be asking, “Why is that?” Are our corporate taxes too high? Do we have too many regulations? Is there something else that we can do as a nation to be more business-friendly, to keep building plants here in America, so that we can employ more people and rake in more taxes? However, it’s a little different with a company like General Motors. Taxpayers lost more than 10 billion bailing out GM...

U.S. President Barack Obama spoke to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, several days after the alleged Israeli air raids on Syrian targets and as Washington steps up its Middle East peace efforts, AFP reported. The White House said in a short statement that Obama and Netanyahu, who is visiting China, spoke by telephone, and discussed "regional security issues and Middle East peace." U.S. officials have declined to comment in detail on air strikes allegedly carried out by Israel on targets near Damascus on Friday and Sunday, which reportedly destroyed Iranian missiles apparently destined for the Hizbullah terror group. But...

A Gold Number Literally Off The Charts Dave GonigamMay 8, 2013“Setting a record” doesn’t begin to do the story justice. The Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department is out with its monthly figures on China’s gold imports via Hong Kong. The Chinese government is notoriously secretive about its total imports, so the Hong Kong figures are the best we have to go on. The March number is 223.5 metric tons — literally off the charts… “This is quite out of expectation, as all these imports were done before the market slump in April,” a trader at the Bank of China...

Doubts are growing about whether China can pass the US to become the world's biggest economy this century amid warnings that the country’s 30-year miracle is nearing exhaustion.

A monkey was mauled by a bear after a disturbing circus stunt went wrong. A video has emerged online of two monkeys and a black bear being forced to ride bicycles around a track in front of a large crowd. After two laps of the track, one of the monkeys crash and the bear then attacks it as it lies stuck under the bicycle.ok The gruesome video is believed to have been shot at the Shanghai Wild Animal Park, in China, which has hit the headlines in the past for its 'Wild Animal Olympics'. In the video, the audience can...

ROME — The Obama administration is providing $100 million in new Syria aid, U.S. officials said Wednesday, but the money is for humanitarian purposes only and not linked to any decision on arming Syrian rebels. The announcement will be made by Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday in Rome, where his diplomacy includes a meeting with Jordan’s foreign minister, the officials said. The new funds will help support 1.4 million Syrian refugees, including many in U.S. ally Jordan, and hundreds of thousands of other civilians still trapped by the violence inside Syria’s border. Total U.S. humanitarian assistance in the...

Only by combining their forces will Israel and Cyprus be able to make a significant dent in the global natural gas economy, the Cypriot energy minister stressed on Tuesday. “We feel that through a close collaboration with Israel we will be able to be a major player in the world energy market, something that for each country individually might be too hard to achieve,” said Energy, Commerce, Industry and Tourism Minister Yiorgos Lakkotrypis. Lakkotrypis was addressing a group of Israeli and Cypriot business leaders and government officials at a seminar entitled “Cyprus: An International and Professional Center,” held in Tel...

Now China Says It May Own Okinawa, Too Agence France PresseMay 8, 2013 US Sale Of Armed Drones To Japan And South Korea Would Transform Tensions In The Pacific China's top newspaper on Wednesday published a call for a review of Japan's sovereignty over the island of Okinawa -- home to major US bases -- with the Asian powers already embroiled in a territorial row. The lengthy article in the People's Daily, China's most-circulated newspaper and the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist party, argued that the country may have rights to the Ryukyu chain, which includes Okinawa. The island is...

Obama has done it. He has brought America down. It only took him just over four years. The Republicans could have stopped him. They didn’t. How did the nihilistic left succeed in destroying America? Simple. They learned just a little of the capitalism they hate, and they drove your nation into outright bankruptcy. And here is what the GOP has to say about it: just about nothing. The once-mighty United States is now the most indebted nation on Earth. In round numbers, here are just some of the vital statistics as the patient dies: National debt: $17 trillion, or $50,000...

For the first time the Obama administration has explicitly accused China’s military of hacking into computer systems of the U.S. government and its defense contractors. "The accusations relayed in the Pentagon’s annual report to Congress on Chinese military capabilities were remarkable in their directness," writes David Sanger of The New York Times.

Few diplomatic overtures have generated loftier expectations in recent years than Washington’s rapprochement with New Delhi. Frequently at loggerheads during the Cold War, then kept apart by the U.S. commitment to counter-proliferation and India’s pursuit of a nuclear deterrent, the two sides have never had a warm relationship. That began to change during the George W. Bush administration, a transformation that was symbolized by a controversial agreement allowing the United States to sell civilian nuclear technology to India, despite its status as a nuclear-armed nation that is not recognized by the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Obama administration has since picked up...

At a meeting with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu promised that Israel would continue to maintain good ties with Cyprus, regardless of its newly-rekindled relationship with Turkey. Netanyahu met with the newly-elected Anastasiades on Sunday night, before he departed for China. At a press conference after the meeting, Anastasiades said that Israel and Cyprus had “embarked on a strategically important dialogue with a view at enhancing and further developing our bilateral ties, which are founded on common principles and values.” In an interview with Channel Two, the Cyprus president said that he and Netanyahu had agreed, among...

The Pentagon for the first time used its annual report on China to directly assert that Beijing’s government and military have conducted computer-based attacks against the U.S., including efforts to steal information from federal agencies. In a new report on the Chinese military, the Defense Department goes a small step further than it has gone in the past, when it said that cyber-attacks originated in China and may be linked to Beijing’s use of civilian experts in clandestine attacks against American companies. But over the past year, U.S. government officials and private cyber-security experts have increasingly stepped up accusations that...

Following this weekend's explosive escalation in Syria, the big unknown was how Russia and China would respond: the two countries have long been known to be opposed to the US-Israel axis' involvement and intervention in Syria, although they have so far kept their involvement to a minimum. Today we get the answer: "Russia said on Monday it was concerned the chances of foreign military intervention in Syria were growing following reports of Israeli air strikes around Damascus which were a source of "particular alarm". "We are seriously concerned by the signs of preparation of global public opinion for possible armed...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is scheduled to meet on Sunday morning with new Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades, who said before the visit that strengthening ties with Israel is one of his government’s most important initiatives. Netanyahu will meet Anastasiades shortly before leaving for a five-day trip to China. The Cyprus Mail quoted Anastasiades as saying the aim of the visit was to begin a “to-the-point dialogue that can lead to collaboration between the two countries that will benefit both peoples in many areas, among them of course the exploitation of natural resources.” Anastasiades arrived on Thursday evening for a twoday...

After decades of slogans like "See the USA in Your Chevrolet" and "Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and Chevrolet," General Motors GM +3.02% has retreated from its overtly patriotic marketing approach since emerging from government-funded bankruptcy. Maybe that was a wise move, given that American taxpayers paid for the $50 billion bailout of "Government Motors" and not all of them were happy about it. But another dynamic also seems to be at work: The auto maker has fundamentally shifted its focus. American taxpayers may have rescued GM during its moment of need, but it is China that is disproportionately benefiting...

The new headquarters of the Chinese People's Daily leaves little to the imagination. When the Gherkin was built in London, I recall eyebrows being raised suggestively. Nudge nudge, wink wink, that kind of Monty Python horseplay. But China's People's Daily (the Communist party's state-owned newspaper) is set to take innuendo to a whole new level. Search results cannot be displayed. But 500 foot penises are fine. As you can see below, the new building leaves little to the imagination and has resulted in the mockery of the looming Chinese... penis... from the world over. Web searches in China are even...

Chinese police have broken up a criminal ring accused of taking meat from rats and foxes and selling it as lamb in the country's latest food safety scandal.

The Chinese intrusion into Depsang Bulge in East Ladakh, approximately 19 km inside our perception of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) on April 15, has raised temperatures both militarily and politically on either side. A series of border personnel meetings between the militaries of the two sides have not been able to resolve the issue so far and the standoff continues till date. It would not be incorrect to presume that this latest provocation from the Chinese side has been undertaken with the tacit approval of the highest levels in the Chinese hierarchy. As we grapple with the current...

A two week Chinese incursion has left India on the verge of crises, it has today been reported. India says Chinese troops set up a camp on its side of the ill-defined frontier in Ladakh region in the middle of April. The platoon of Chinese soldiers slipped across the boundary into India in the middle of the night, according to Indian officials. They were ferried across the bitterly cold moonscape in Chinese army vehicles, then got out to traverse a dry creek bed with a helicopter hovering overhead for protection. They finally reached their destination and pitched a tent in...

The platoon of Chinese soldiers slipped across the boundary into India in the middle of the night, according to Indian officials. They were ferried across the bitterly cold moonscape in Chinese army vehicles, then got out to traverse a dry creek bed with a helicopter hovering overhead for protection. They finally reached their destination and pitched a tent in the barren Depsang Valley in the Ladakh region, a symbolic claim of sovereignty deep inside Indian-held territory. So stealthy was the operation that India did not discover the incursion until a day later, Indian officials said. China denies any incursion, but...

Chinese Soldiers March Into Indian Territory, Pitch Tents, Declare Land For China Jake Maxwell Watts, QuartzMay 2, 2013, 11:22 AM China and India are once again at each other’s throats over an unmarked border in the Himalayas. But this time, oddly, nobody seems to know why. In mid-April, around 30 Chinese troops marched across the de facto border between China and India and pitched tents 19 kilometers inside Indian territory, just when relations between the two were going so well. The Indian government, which has so far exercised relative restraint, was accused by opposition politicians as being “weak, cowardly and...

China’s most famous—and most powerful—Catholic bishop has died. When I last saw him in 2011, I knew then that age was finally catching up with Shanghai’s remarkable and indefatigable prelate. As we sat together, I handed him a pile of rare photographs of him and his fellow Jesuits, images that dated before his arrest in 1955. Pausing for some time as he looked over the first photograph, he said in a low voice, “Old beloved friends.” He had not seen those faces in more than six long and eventful decades. He asked me to bring more photographs of “Catholic Shanghai...

The first Chinese-owned vehicle manufacturer in the United States unveiled ambitious plans Wednesday to eventually build as many as 1,000 plug-in electric buses a year at a refurbished RV manufacturing plant in a wind-swept, sage-dotted corner of the Mojave Desert. In a news conference on a patio outside BYD’s new energy-efficient production facility, the company’s senior vice president, Stella Li, said the first of 10 zero-pollution vehicles, already on order from the city of Long Beach, should roll off the assembly line next year. Within two years, Li said, BYD Motors expects to be producing 50 buses a year, and...

A powerful 7.0 magnitude earthquake that shook southwest China’s Sichuan province on April 21 traumatized its giant panda population, reported the state-run Xinhua agency. No deaths or injuries of pandas have been reported at the Bifengxia Panda base, located 50 km away from the quake epicenter in Longmen county, Ya’an city, is home to 61 members of the endangered species. Nearly half of them were moved here from the Wolong Natural Reserve five years ago after a 8.0 magnitude quake there. According to video footage, when the quake occurred at 8.02 a.m. Saturday, the pandas were stunned; some later climbed...