Rail travel between London and Beijing in just two days could be possible within a decade through an ambitious Chinese project.

The Asian power wants to build the 200mph 'Orient Express-style' rail line through Europe, the Middle East, India and Asia, paying for the entire scheme in return to access to the natural resources of the countries it travels through.

The Obama Administration has heightened tensions with China through a series of measures which can only be characterized as major provocations designed to undermine relations between the two countries. These provocations include political support for separatist movements, such as the US-funded theocratic-monk led Tibetan secessionists and the Washington-based Uyghur secessionists, as well as through the $6.4 billion-dollar advanced arms sales to Taiwan, a virtual protectorate of the US Navy. President Obama has publicly met with and openly backed these separatist and secessionists groups, flaunting Washington’s refusal to recognize China’s existing borders.

Urgent warnings have been circulated throughout Nato and the European Union for secret intelligence material to be protected from a recent surge in cyberwar attacks originating in China.

The attacks have also hit government and military institutions in the United States, where analysts said that the West had no effective response and that EU systems were especially vulnerable because most cyber security efforts were left to member states.

Nato diplomatic sources told The Times: “Everyone has been made aware that the Chinese have become very active with cyber-attacks and we’re now getting regular warnings from the office for internal security.” The sources said that the number of attacks had increased significantly over the past 12 months, with China among the most active players.

Quadra Mining said on Monday it has agreed to form a joint venture with China's largest utility company to help expand its Chilean operations and fund its huge Sierra Gorda copper project, which is expected to cost over $2 billion.

The Canadian miner signed a memorandum of understanding with State Grid International Development Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of State Grid Corp of China. The joint venture will develop and operate Quadra's Sierra Gorda project and the Franke mine in northern Chile.

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I wonder how long it will be before the US attacks Canada for terrorism?

CNN claims Communism has been good for women.

China has 32million more men aged under 20 than women, according to a paper published last month by Therese Hesketh, of University College London. Her latest research suggests that rural areas where the imbalance is at its greatest will be further affected because women are "marrying out" into cities

The Pure Water Committee of Western Maryland Inc. was formed in 1960 as a grass roots network of citizens with a 50-year-old mission to educate the public of the complete fraud of the practice called water fluoridation.

Recently, it has come to my attention in an engineering report for the city of Boulder, Colo., that they did an evaluation of fluoridation chemicals and sources and found that much of the fluoride chemicals used for water fluoridation are now coming out of China with arsenic and lead levels of 50 and 40 milligrams respectively per bag and non-existent regulatory monitoring of the salt or acid compounds from these imports.

SEEKING A GLOBAL SHOWDOWN with Russia and China, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who is recognized and feared by Zionist Jews as Obama’s foreign policy adviser, is intent on bringing Iran back into the Western orbit. In Brzezinski’s world view, Iran could be a valuable US asset to be played against Russia and China.

Even with his protege at Defense, Robert Gates, and his reputation as a global strategist, Brzezinski has all but admitted that he simply does not possess the influence to override the power the Jewish lobby wields over Obama’s decision-making in foreign affairs.

China said on Saturday that two US diplomats will visit this coming week to discuss the two countries' relations, which have been strained recently on several issues.

The statement posted on China's Foreign Ministry Web site quoted spokesman Qin Gang as saying Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg and Senior White House Asia adviser Jeffrey Bader will be in China from Tuesday through Thursday.

Evidence is mounting that Chinese sales of US Treasury bonds over recent months are intended as a warning shot to Washington over escalating political disputes rather than being part of a routine portfolio shift as thought at first.

A front-page story in the state’s China Information News said the record $34bn sale of US bonds in December was a "commendable" move. The article was republished by the National Bureau of Statistics, giving it a stronger imprimatur.

With its proposed weapon deal with Taiwan, the US appears determined to encircle China with American-built anti-missile systems, Chinese military experts have observed.

Taiwan became the fifth global buyer of the Patriot missile defence system last year following Japan, the Republic of Korea, the United Arab Emirates and Germany.

According to Chinese military strategists, Washington's weapon deal with Taiwan is the key part of a US strategic encirclement of China in the East Asian region.

Ambassador Jon Huntsman was called in to China's foreign ministry to hear "solemn representations" over the meeting from China's vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The rebuke comes after China warned that Washington risked damaging US-China relations if it went ahead with the meeting, however analysts said the China's carefully calibrated response indicated that Beijing was not going to overreact.

This kind of governing cannot last forever and the longer it persists, the more destructive will be its inevitable toppling. The last administration repeatedly warned the Chinese, who were only showing the virtues of good capitalists, not to save as much. That begged the question, who is going to fund our debt if Chinese savers don’t?

We may be about to find out.

China has ordered managers of its vast currency reserves to withdraw from risky dollar assets and retreat to core debt guaranteed by the US government, a clear sign that Beijing is battening down the hatches for fresh trouble on global markets.

Senior Chinese military officers have proposed that their country boost defense spending, adjust PLA deployments, and possibly sell some U.S. bonds to punish Washington for its latest round of arms sales to Taiwan.

MORE than half of Chinese people questioned in a poll believe China and America are heading for a new “cold war”.

The finding came after battles over Taiwan, Tibet, trade, climate change, internet freedom and human rights which have poisoned relations in the three months since President Barack Obama made a fruitless visit to Beijing.

According to diplomatic sources, a rancorous postmortem examination is under way inside the US government, led by officials who think the president was badly advised and was made to appear weak.

In China’s eyes, the American response — which includes a pledge by Obama to get tougher on trade — is a reaction against its rising power.

Executive Summary

The government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is a decade into a
sweeping military modernization program that has fundamentally transformed its
ability to fight high tech wars. The Chinese military, using increasingly networked
forces capable of communicating across service arms and among all echelons of
command, is pushing beyond its traditional missions focused on Taiwan and toward a
more regional defense posture. This modernization effort, known as
informationization, is guided by the doctrine of fighting “Local War Under
Informationized Conditions,” which refers to the PLA’s ongoing effort to develop a
fully networked architecture capable of coordinating military operations on land, in air,

GhostNet (simplified Chinese: ???; traditional Chinese: ???; pinyin: Y?uLíngW?ng) is the name given by researchers at the Information Warfare Monitor to a large-scale cyber spying[1][2] operation discovered in March 2009. Its command and control infrastructure is based mainly in the People's Republic of China and has infiltrated high-value political, economic and media locations[3] in 103 countries. Computer systems belonging to embassies, foreign ministries and other government offices, and the Dalai Lama's Tibetan exile centers in India, London and New York City were compromised. Although the activity is mostly based in China, there is no conclusive evidence that the Chinese government is involved in its operation.[4]

The latest news is that Romania will be hosting the U.S. Army's ground-based "missile defense" systems. Russia is not pleased with these developments.

These same Army Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) systems are going to be deployed in Taiwan as the U.S. continues its military encirclement of China. U.S. PAC-3 systems have already been deployed in Japan and South Korea.

The warning comes after three weeks of increasingly irate exchanges between the US and China over contentious issues including internet censorship, trade and a decision by the Obama administration to sell £4bn of arms to Taiwan.

Although the Chinese government routinely objects to any foreign leaders meeting the exiled Tibetan spirutal leader analysts say the strength of the latest condemnation reflects genuine anger in Beijing at a perceived hardening of US attitudes towards China.
Zhu Weiqun, a vice minister of the united front work department of China's ruling Communist Party, which steers policy on religious affairs said any meeting would "seriously undermine" the political basis of China-US relations.

China has accused the United States of 'rude and unreasonable Cold War thinking' over its decision to sell £4 billion worth of arms to Taiwan.
The rhetoric in a series of venemous editorials in the government-controlled media was exceeded by thousands of anti-American comments on China's main internet portals, including a petition against the arms package that attracted more than 50,000 signatures in just a few hours.

China is laying “honey traps” for UK business executives by bugging and burgling them in order to blackmail them into providing sensitive commercial secrets, British intelligence service MI5 has alleged.

The Times quoted a leaked MI5 document, as saying that China’s undercover intelligence officers have approached UK businessmen at trade fairs and exhibitions with the offer of “gifts” and “lavish hospitality”.

China threatened to impose sanctions on U.S. arms firms and cut cooperation with Washington unless it cancels a $6.4 billion arms sale to Taiwan, in an unprecedented move signaling Beijing's growing global power.

China has cancelled all military exchanges with the US in a sign of its anger at the proposed sale of advanced missiles and helicopters to Taiwan.
Beijing has also imposed sanctions on the companies selling the arms.

“We made the decision out of considerations on the severe harm of the US arms sales to Taiwan,” said Defence Ministry spokesman Huang Xueping in a statement.
“The US plan will definitely seriously disturb the relations between the two countries.”

China on Friday protested the US decision to sell 6.4 billion dollars in weapons to Taiwan and warned of "serious" damage to relations and cooperation with Washington.

The United States and China agreed to keep talking about their spat over the internet search engine, following talks on the sidelines of an international conference on Afghanistan.

But while Mrs Clinton characterised the discussion as "a very positive exchange", in Washington the US commerce secretary gave warning that US companies were facing increasing obstacles when trying to do business in China.

Chinese scientists are particularly strong on chemistry and materials engineering, both considered central to the country’s industrial development and economic future.

The number of peer-reviewed papers published by Chinese researchers rose 64-fold over the past 30 years.

China is now second only to the US in terms of academic papers published, and will take first place by 2020 if current trends continue.

It comes after last week’s announcement that China is poised to replace Japan as the world’s second largest economy, behind the US.

Cyber attacks against human rights activists could have been facilitated by people working in Google's China office, say reports

Google’s threat yesterday to stop censoring search results on its Google.cn site raises the question of just what the regime is censoring. As we reported yesterday, China has increasingly sophisticated tools – known as the ‘Golden Shield’ or the ‘Great Firewall of China’ – available to monitor and limit web traffic. The sites that are blocked vary over time but there are some common themes.

Google, the world's leading search engine, has thrown down the gauntlet to China by saying it is no longer willing to censor search results on its Chinese service.

The internet giant said the decision followed a cyber attack it believes was aimed at gathering information on Chinese human rights activists.

The move follows a clampdown on the internet in China over the last year, which has seen sites and social networking services hosted overseas blocked – including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube – and the closure of many sites at home. Chinese authorities ­criticised Google for supplying "vulgar" content in results.

Google, the internet search engine, has said it is ready to close down its business and quit China because of the country's increasing censorship.

In a head-to-head confrontation with the Chinese government, the company said that it will pull out of the country unless it is allowed to provide a totally uncensored service.

Google plans to curb its controversial practice of censoring search results in China after uncovering a "highly sophisticated and targeted attack" designed to steal information about human rights activists from its Gmail service and at least 20 other large companies.

The attack that hit Google in mid-December originated in China and was aimed at accessing the Gmail accounts of human rights activists. Although only two email accounts appear to have been breached, "accounts of dozens of US-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China" have been routinely breached, most likely as a result of phishing or malware attacks, the company said Tuesday.

China's auto sales surged past the United States to reach record levels in 2009, industry figures showed on Monday, underscoring China's importance to the global auto industry as the world's biggest market.

The figures came as PSA Peugeot Citroen of France said markets were expected to show signs of recovery around the world in 2010, while Volkswagen AG said it aims to at least double its U.S. sales in coming years.

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And to think that in China they have problems finding enough space on the road for a bicycle.
Try to imagine my complete and utter lack of surprise.

China 'overtakes Germany as world's largest exporter

China's exports rose 17.7% in December, state media has reported, suggesting the country has overtaken Germany as the world's largest exporter.

The inauguration of the Dauletabad-Sarakhs-Khangiran pipeline on Wednesday connecting Iran's northern Caspian region with Turkmenistan's vast gas field may go unnoticed amid the Western media cacophony that it is "apocalypse now" for the Islamic regime in Tehran.

The event sends strong messages for regional security. Within the space of three weeks, Turkmenistan has committed its entire gas exports to China, Russia and Iran. It has no urgent need of the pipelines that the United States and the European Union have been advancing. Are we hearing the faint notes of a Russia-China-Iran symphony?

Ever since 1945, the US has regarded itself as the leader of the “free world”. But the Obama administration is facing an unexpected and unwelcome development in global politics. Four of the biggest and most strategically important democracies in the developing world – Brazil, India, South Africa and Turkey – are increasingly at odds with American foreign policy. Rather than siding with the US on the big international issues, they are just as likely to line up with authoritarian powers such as China and Iran.

Committing treason for a piece of the pie
By Peter Chamberlin
Jan 5, 2010, 00:23
In the greatest fraud ever perpetrated upon any force of patriotic fighting men in the history of the human race, over 2 million men and women have been sent to fight and die in wars where victory was never possible, by government mandate. This has been a hallmark of America’s wars, set by the first Pres. Bush in his Gulf war. No useful assets like Saddam Hussein (or the Taliban, for that matter) can be eliminated in our wars of conquest. We are only interested in reeling in those who think that they are beyond control, restoring the balance of power, the balance of terror.

Asian capitalism, notably China and South Korea are competing with the US for global power. Asian global power is driven by dynamic economic growth, while the US pursues a strategy of military-driven empire building.

James Petras | January 3, 2010

One Day’s Read of the Financial Times

Dec. 30 (Bloomberg) — PetroChina Co. won the approval of the Canadian government for its C$1.9 billion ($1.8 billion) bid to buy a stake in two Alberta oil-sands projects, its biggest North American acquisition.

The purchase by China’s largest oil company of a 60 percent share in Athabasca Oil Sands Corp.’s MacKay River and Dover oil- sands projects “is likely to be of net benefit to Canada,” Industry Minister Tony Clement said in a statement yesterday.

China on Saturday launched what it described as the world’s fastest super high-speed train. The new bullet train runs at an average speed of 217 miles-an-hour, and can reach up to 245 miles-an-hour, cutting the 1,068 kilometers (664 miles) journey time between Wuhan in central China and Guangzhou in the country’s south (a business hub near Hong Kong) from the original 9 hours to about 3 hours.

It was in this suitcase, Reprieve has said, that customs officials at Urumqi found nearly nine pounds of heroin. Chinese law imposes the death penalty for anyone found smuggling more than 50 grams of heroin, less than two ounces.

Seeing some recent news and developments on the Middle East game of “Smoke and Mirrors”, a game that the U.S. taxpayer funds and the U.S. government serves a key role. One of the many reasons the United States of America is hated across the globe. We have discussed how critical China and Russia are for the future of the Middle East, especially in Iran which already has close diplomatic and economic ties with Russian and China (two veto wielding, permanent members of the U.N. Security Council). See our Putin back to the Kremlin? post...