Page 43 of 63 FirstFirst ... 33353637383940414243444546474849505153 ... LastLast
Results 1,051 to 1,075 of 1574

Thread: Eurasia Topics

  1. #1051
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    96,555
    I thought the chinky spies were going to kill off Android?

    Huawei has been battered by a long US campaign against the company. Now it is hunkering down for survival by selling off its budget smartphone business.



    A consortium of buyers said on Tuesday that it has acquired Huawei's Honor smartphone brand for an undisclosed amount of money. The buyers include more than 30 Chinese agents and dealers of the budget brand.


    Huawei and the group of buyers said they struck the deal to help save Honor's supply chain, and protect consumers and sellers. The Trump administration has cut off the Chinese company's access to vital technology, such as chipsets and software for its smartphones and 5G telecommunications equipment. Washington says Huawei poses a national security threat, allegations the company has long denied.
    https://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/ne...ba7620b6a.html

  2. #1052
    Thailand Expat
    panama hat's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Last Online
    21-10-2023 @ 08:08 AM
    Location
    Way, Way South of the border now - thank God!
    Posts
    32,680
    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    The buyers include more than 30 Chinese agents and dealers of the budget brand.
    What could go wrong . . .

  3. #1053
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    96,555
    For your convenience, I have translated the important phrases from Mr. Shithole's address.

    "Vigorously make scientific and technological innovations" - translation: "Nick more shit off the West"

    "a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation is gathering pace" - translation: "We are nicking more shit off the West".




    China will vigorously make scientific and technological innovations to foster new growth drivers, Chinese President Xi Jinping said at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Dialogues on Thursday via video link in Beijing.

    In his keynote speech, Xi said that a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation is gathering pace, and science and technology are playing an even more significant role in boosting social productivity.



  4. #1054
    Thailand Expat OhOh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2010
    Last Online
    Yesterday @ 08:43 PM
    Location
    Where troubles melt like lemon drops
    Posts
    25,222
    Why Russians Just Can’t Figure Things Out

    19.11.2020 Author: Phil Butler

    "2020 may end up being the year history puts down as a time when logic totally escaped Earth’s atmosphere. Just one look at news headlines from anywhere on the globe tells us we live on a lunatic planet. In America, half the people want a fascist who seems to hate everybody as president, while the other half picked a happy war monger puppet every sane voter hates. Half the world thinks a pandemic is fake, and that COVID-19 deaths are really bus hit and run accidents. The other half is ready to inject anything, forego anything, and bow down to anything that will prevent them being infected. Stop me when I am wrong, but it’s time somebody called bullshit. I think Russia may be the only nation able to do so, at this point. Here’s some interesting reasons why.

    News this morning from Russian made me think about how many times President Vladimir Putin’s hapless assassins had failed to kill his enemies. When the so-called “Sausage King” Vladimir Marugov was skewered by a crossbow bolt in his outdoor sauna at his country estate outside Moscow, my mind immediately turned to Navalny, the blogger who wants to be a Russian Czar who says Kremlin agents tried to poison him with deadly nerve agents. Deadly nerve agents, plutonium, envelopes laden with invisible poisons, and Keystone Cop stories cooked up by British Intelligence! This is all humanity has to go on.

    Then suddenly, two bozos in a rusty Lada manage to kill a billionaire oligarch with a single shot from a crossbow? Hell, for all the good Putin’s assassin teams do him, he might as well leave his enemies to die from a Moscow mugging. The day I read that any Putin haters get hit by a streetcar run off the rails, that’s the day I start suspecting the Kremlin of unnecessary dirty deeds. Where’s the logic? Where’s the proof? How can Putin be charged with everything and never be proven guilty? Or, better yet, wouldn’t such an unscratchable dark hero make the best ever King of Earth? I mean, if he can get by with everything, isn’t the writing on the wall anyhow?
    Moving on, what about Ukraine claiming that Borscht is not Russian, but Ukrainian? Get this, a Ukrainian chef supported by the Ministry of Culture and Parliament is trying to get the United Nation’s cultural body, UNESCO, to list borscht as an intangible part of Ukraine’s cultural heritage. Is nothing sacred anymore? Can’t the world believe this tasty soup comes from Mother Russia? Well, at least we are able to solve one mystery here at the dawn of the 21st century. Since the earliest written reference to the Slavic hogweed soup can be found in Domostroy (Domestic Order), a 16th-century Russian compendium of moral rules and homemaking advice, it seems fair for Russia to claim the fame for Borscht.

    While there are claims that the soup was created in Ukraine back in the 9th century, no one has yet provided a documented recipe. The whole borscht argument seems to play out like other Russophobia tales, with Russia haters trashing everything Russian, including the ability to make soup. It’s as if Ukraine and other would-be NATO nations are the only places on Earth where peasants cooked hogweed in a pot. And farther west, political killings and other misdeeds are not called “bad” no matter what weapons or soups are used. Take the CIA’s long list of human rights violations, as an example.
    America’s henchmen can create death squads from Afghanistan to Honduras, torture prisoners using either enhanced interrogation techniques or the old fashioned ones, experiment on humans (MK-ULTRA), or even drug American citizens into compliance. But let one blogger with delusions of grandeur get the flu in Russia! And former KGB officers are visualized wringing their hands at the Kremlin Palace, as they scheme to botch yet another attack with a nerve agent. Are you feeling me here? I bet you are.

    Russia is subjected to a whole different set of rules, you see. When the CIA or other secretive agencies in the west are scrutinized, those doing the judging create tons of loopholes. For instance, after World War II assassinations and targeting killings were differentiated so that the people keeping up with crimes against humanity could keep track of the evil shit Washington and London were doing. For Putin and Russia at large, if somebody dies a death that looks convenient, it’s assassination by the Kremlin boss. But if the CIA snuffs somebody then the judges must look at drone killings versus coup attempts, direct assassinations, hired assassinations, and the various mysterious death and disappearance genres of killing. Castro to Kennedy, Achmed Sukarno of Indonesia or the Contras in Nicaragua, murder for the western democracies has a different definition. This makes me wonder how come the Kremlin never uses Langley tactics? It’s always got to be some boutique MX gas or other chemical weapons for the Russians, I guess.
    I don’t know which is harder to believe. Vladimir Putin’s goofy, fumbling secret agents failing to kill almost everybody, or dead billionaire Howard Hughes’ betrayer Robert Maheu plotting to kill Robert F. Kennedy for the CIA. A new book says the brother of slain President John F. Kennedy was also killed by the CIA. Interestingly, amazingly, the popular Senator was not stricken down with a Gamma Ray Gun or invisible gas, he was shot with a Saturday night special instead. But of course, Russians learn the long and hard way, except for two-bit kidnappers who use store-bought bows and arrows to wield death, that is.

    Isn’t it amazing how efficient American killers are? JFK was shot with a rusty old Italian military rifle with a single round to the back of the head by the worst marksman in U.S. Marine history. Robert F. Kennedy was killed with a 22-caliber pea shooter wielded by Palestinian militant Sirhan Sirhan. As I sit here typing, I wonder why Russia has never considered cheaper and more effective ways to destroy her enemies? Maybe cheap firearms are just not romantic or cool enough for Russians? Even if deadly nerve agents from Cold War days seem cool, so far they have proved to be decidedly inefficient. Russia, really is, giving WMDs a bad name if all the allegations are ever proven true.

    Finally, I would offer the Kremlin some good advice with regard to methods of assassination and policy surrounding those efforts. The United States State Department offers a template for success in these matters. This statement on how the good old USA will help partners keep Russian aggression in check, to wit:

    “The United States is committed to helping our partners around the world counter Russian malign activities, and looks forward to continuing to work with them to help recognize, attribute, and respond effectively to incidents where use of WMD as a tool of assassination is suspected.”

    So, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) should create a similar program for all those nations fearful that the CIA will “accident” their leaders. Perhaps MFA spokeslady Maria Zakharova should come out and advise leaders from Albania to Zambia to don bulletproof vests and to stop watching American TV shows. And most importantly, Zakharova should offer Russia’s assistance in identifying CIA motives anytime anybody dies. This way Russia’s role in the world will be the same as the USA’s. Russia can be the judge, jury, and executioner of the world too.

    On a final note, Russian bullshit investigators will have the easiest job ever, since everything that comes out of US policymaker mouths is total crap."

    Why Russians Just Can’t Figure Things Out | New Eastern Outlook





    A tray full of GOLD is not worth a moment in time.

  5. #1055
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    96,555
    Phil sure links a lot of RT stories on his homepage.

    Is this another one of your imaginary journalists HooHoo?


  6. #1056
    Thailand Expat
    panama hat's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Last Online
    21-10-2023 @ 08:08 AM
    Location
    Way, Way South of the border now - thank God!
    Posts
    32,680
    Quote Originally Posted by OhOh View Post
    Russia is subjected to a whole different set of rules, you see.

  7. #1057
    Thailand Expat helge's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    11,664
    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    imaginary journalists
    G'Day Digger


  8. #1058
    Thailand Expat OhOh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2010
    Last Online
    Yesterday @ 08:43 PM
    Location
    Where troubles melt like lemon drops
    Posts
    25,222
    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    "imaginative' journalists
    FIFY.

    It appears they are extremely useful for some "newspapers" to illustrate the type of "reporter" required for particular jobs. As can be seen from the buttons to be expanded upon if the candidate desires a prestigious beat.

    A call for a "journalist" to take on the Moscow, Russia beat:

    Job Description

    "Vladimir Putin’s Russia remains one of the biggest stories in the world.

    It sends out hit squads armed with nerve agents against its enemies, most recently the opposition leader Aleksei Navalny. It has its cyber agents sow chaos and disharmony in the West to tarnish its democratic systems, while promoting its faux version of democracy. It has deployed private military contractors around the globe to secretly spread its influence. At home, its hospitals are filling up fast with Covid patients as its president hides out in his villa.


    If that sounds like a place you want to cover, then we have good news: We will have an opening for a new correspondent as Andy Higgins takes over as our next Eastern Europe Bureau Chief early next year."

    Workday


  9. #1059
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    96,555
    Quote Originally Posted by OhOh View Post
    FIFY.

    It appears they are extremely useful for some "newspapers" to illustrate the type of "reporter" required for particular jobs. As can be seen from the buttons to be expanded upon if the candidate desires a prestigious beat.

    A call for a "journalist" to take on the Moscow, Russia beat:

    Job Description

    "Vladimir Putin’s Russia remains one of the biggest stories in the world.

    It sends out hit squads armed with nerve agents against its enemies, most recently the opposition leader Aleksei Navalny. It has its cyber agents sow chaos and disharmony in the West to tarnish its democratic systems, while promoting its faux version of democracy. It has deployed private military contractors around the globe to secretly spread its influence. At home, its hospitals are filling up fast with Covid patients as its president hides out in his villa.


    If that sounds like a place you want to cover, then we have good news: We will have an opening for a new correspondent as Andy Higgins takes over as our next Eastern Europe Bureau Chief early next year."

    Workday


    So that's a big fat yes then.

    Another of Vlad's internet bullshit factory creations.

  10. #1060
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    96,555
    Looks like Walmart have unknowingly been selling chinky spying shit as well.

    If you have a Jetstream or Wavlink router, throw it in the bin at once.

    Walmart-exclusive router and others sold on Amazon & eBay contain hidden backdoors to control devices | CyberNews

  11. #1061
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    96,555
    Fucking hell, not a red velvet banner. They must have spent.... fuck all.

    A British diplomat who rescued a Chinese woman from a river earlier this month has been presented with a red velvet banner as a way of thanks.

  12. #1062
    Thailand Expat
    panama hat's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Last Online
    21-10-2023 @ 08:08 AM
    Location
    Way, Way South of the border now - thank God!
    Posts
    32,680
    They're probably embarrassed that a European capitalist pig dog was the only one with enough balls to save one of theirs.

    Massive loss of face

  13. #1063
    Thailand Expat helge's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    11,664
    Quote Originally Posted by panama hat View Post
    They're probably embarrassed that a European capitalist pig dog was the only one with enough balls to save one of theirs.

    Massive loss of face
    There are so many chinese.

    They are not tribal

    Expendable

    You most have noticed how they treat each other

    Their executions aren't a coincidence

  14. #1064
    Thailand Expat
    panama hat's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Last Online
    21-10-2023 @ 08:08 AM
    Location
    Way, Way South of the border now - thank God!
    Posts
    32,680
    Quote Originally Posted by helge View Post
    They are not tribal
    Well . . . just a bit, lines drawn at dialect


    Quote Originally Posted by helge View Post
    You most have noticed how they treat each other
    Oh yes - miserably

  15. #1065
    Thailand Expat OhOh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2010
    Last Online
    Yesterday @ 08:43 PM
    Location
    Where troubles melt like lemon drops
    Posts
    25,222
    Speech by Hezbollah Secretary General Sayed Hassan Nasrallah on November 11, 2020, celebrating Hezbollah’s “Martyrs Day”, which honors all martyrs of the Resistance.

    A wide ranging speech covering the following topics:

    1. Israeli military maneuvers

    Israel has moved from permanent aggression to a defensive posture

    An admission of failure and unpreparedness

    Hezbollah was on high alert during these maneuvers

    2. US elections

    A paper Empire and a junk Democracy

    Allegations of electoral fraud are a gross heist attempt

    Israel will always be the main concern of any US administration

    Axis of Resistance welcomes Trump’s humiliating defeat

    3. Trump’s foreign policy is a monumental failure

    In the Middle East, no one will regret the assassin of Qassem Soleimani

    Trump demonstrated the weakness of the United States

    Anything can happen in the last two months of the Trump administration

    4. Resistance Axis remains on high alert, ready for any US-Israeli war


    Nasrallah: We rejoice at Trump’s defeat without illusions about Biden, and stay ready for war – Resistance News Unfiltered

  16. #1066
    Thailand Expat OhOh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2010
    Last Online
    Yesterday @ 08:43 PM
    Location
    Where troubles melt like lemon drops
    Posts
    25,222
    Russia, China reinvent their moorings in Central Asia

    Posted on November 24, 2020 by M. K. BHADRAKUMAR

    "
    The United States, which was de facto assuming the historical role of Great Britain in the 19th century Great Game in Central Asia, was inclined to take a relaxed view of China’s return to the region in the first decade of the post-Soviet period. China’s rise had not yet become a compelling geopolitical reality in the Central Asian region or in world politics and the US’ global strategies.

    The US analysts even fancied that China could be a potential geopolitical partner for the West to roll back the predominant Russian influence in the Central Asian region.

    The US had no history of engagement with the Central Asian region prior to the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the USSR. But that didn’t mean that the remote, landlocked Muslim republics at the periphery of the Soviet Union didn’t draw the attention of the American strategists. The Fergana Valley, heaving heavily with the tumult of radical islam was a talking point all through the Soviet era ever since Joesph Stalin addressed the nationality question in Central Asia from the Marxist-Leninist perspective.

    Arguably, the US strategists should have had a convergence of interests with Boris Yeltsin’s Russia to work together in a cooperative and coordinated spirit to facilitate an orderly transition of the Central Asian region and in bringing about a democratic transformation in the region from a long term perspective.

    All indications are that Russia was very much open to such cooperation. In fact, the US and Russia collaborated successfully for the removal of nuclear weapons from the Soviet inventory deployed in Kazakhstan. However, the strategic thinking was lacking in Washington over a scenario where Russia could be a useful ally to counter rising China.

    On the contrary, by the middle of the 1990s, the Bill Clinton administration began sensing, rightly so, that it was a matter of time before Yeltsin and his circle of pro-western Russian elite would get disillusioned with the US’ singular disinterest in visualising the Kremlin leadership as an equal partner in regional politics in the former Soviet republics.

    Yeltsin’s circle had a preponderance of “westernists” in the early part of the 1990s. Nonetheless, why the US missed such a golden opportunity still remains a mystery. In retrospect, a democratic Russia and a democratised Central Asia would have meant a near-total isolation of China in the Eurasian landmass.

    The only plausible explanation could be that the US regarded it as inevitable that the Sino-Russian normalisation which was already getting under way in the late 1980s would inexorably lead to a strategic realignment in Eurasia and a dual containment strategy toward the two big powers would become necessary.

    Thus, the US concentrated on strengthening the “independence” of the Central Asian states and developing access routes for them to the world market bypassing Russian territory, which meant, plainly put, getting them to move out of Moscow’s orbit. In sum, by the second half of the 1990s, the first stirrings of the great game had begun to appear.

    When I took up the diplomatic assignment in Tashkent in 1995, Uzbekistan was well on the way to become the principal theatre where a Russian-American struggle for influence was playing out. The US pampered the vanities of the mercurial Uzbek leader President Islam Karimov who staunchly believed in his country’s destiny as a regional power, and played on his calibrated distancing from interdependency with Russia. The US also could tap into the tensions between Moscow and Tashkent over the Tajik civil war (1992-1997), which ended finally with the joint Russian-Iranian initiative, much to the discomfiture of Washington.

    Russia was hard-pressed to push back at the US, given the lack of resources and the overall political disarray in Moscow at that time. But Moscow could count on the Soviet-trained elite who were largely running the Central Asian states, who empathised with Russia. For the Central Asian elites, Moscow still remained the metropolis. Besides, the Soviet era supply chain, energy ties, Russian media, Central Asian migrant workers in Russia, etc. also worked to Moscow’s advantage. Under the trying circumstances, the Russian diplomats did rather well in Tashkent and other Central Asian capitals to shore up Moscow’s influence in the steppes.

    Toward the second half of the 1990s, however, the international environment began changing dramatically which impacted the regional security situation in Central Asia. The debate in Washington and the NATO allies in Europe over the alliance’s eastward expansion into the territories of the former Soviet Union had commenced by the mid-1990s — incredibly enough, within four to five years of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in a cynical abandonment of of the western assurances held out to Mikhail Gorbachev that the alliance would never expand eastward toward Russian borders after th disbandment of the Warsaw Pact in a post-cold war setting in Eurasia.

    By 1999, in the face of furious Russian opposition, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were admitted as NATO members. This was followed by another NATO expansion with the accession of seven Central and Eastern European countries — Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. These nations were first invited to start talks of membership during the 2002 Prague summit and joined NATO shortly before the alliance’s 2004 Istanbul summit.

    By the second half of the 1990s, the US had already begun co-opting the Central Asian states to enter into partnership agreements with the NATO under the high-sounding rubric Partnership for Peace. The US agenda was to weaken and undermine the Russia-led collective security system in Central Asia.

    Meanwhile, the Central Asian security situation also began to get complicated with the capture of power in Kabul by the Taliban in 1996. The Taliban’s push toward the northern border regions of Afghanistan in 1997 turned extremely violent resulting in the massacre of thousands of people in the Amu Darya region. The horrific events traumatised the Central Asian elites.


    Incidents like the ghastly murder of former Afghan president Najibullah in Kabul in September 1996 and the killing of 8 Iranian diplomats and the IRNA correspondent by the Taliban militia attacking the consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif in August 1998 shocked the Central Asian elites (although the Taliban spokesmen typically put the blame on renegade forces who had acted without orders.)

    Karimov even ordered that huge concrete boulders be put across the railroad bridge spanning Amu Darya, which connected the city of Termez with Mazar-i-Sharif to blockade it from any predatory moves by the Taliban.
    The Central Asian elites read the tea leaves correctly that the Taliban was a creation of Pakistan, the US and the wealthy Arab Sheikhs with a certain geopolitical agenda directed against the regional states. In the bargain, the US image suffered in the Central Asian region.

    Curiously, the then US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian Affairs Robin Raphel undertook a regional tour of the Central Asian capitals in 1997 with a brief to try to persuade the Central Asian elites (in vain) that the Taliban was an indigenous Afghan movement and it did not really pose any security threats to their countries.

    The Central Asian countries were well aware that the Taliban representatives were feted by the Big Oil in Texas. Indeed, the US was hard-pressed to identify or lend support to the anti-Taliban resistance known as the Northern Alliance, which took shape in 1997-1998. All in all, the contradictions in the US’ Central Asian strategy began surging in the backdrop of the ascendance of the Taliban.

    The Pentagon’s response was to stage a spectacular display of sheer military capability in September 1997, when the US Army’s 82nd airborne division conducted an exercise with a Kazakh-Kyrgyz-Uzbek joint battalion (known as CentrasBat) with the longest-distance airborne operation in military history.

    Six US C-17 transport planes flew 12,500 kilometres, 19 hours non-stop, with two mid-air refuellings, from the 82nd division’s base at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to Sairam airport near the city of Chimkent in Kazakhstan. The planes carried 800 US soldiers, who parachuted to secure the Kazakh airport close to the Uzbek border against a hypothetical adversary. The commander of US Atlantic forces, four-star Gen. John Sheehan, was the first to jump at Sairam airport.

    The impressive exercise was intended to showcase the US military capability to be the region’s provider of security and it seemingly presupposed a peacekeeping operation in Central Asia under the NATO operational command. (Token units from three NATO countries were also involved in the exercise — Turkey, Denmark and Germany.) Gen. Sheehan stated that the exercise highlighted “the US interest that the Central Asian states lived in stability” and the fact that “there is no nation on the face of the earth where we (US) can’t go.”

    The goals of the military exercise were defined, amongst other things, as: improving interoperability between the NATO countries and their Central Asian partners; asserting the US support for the independence of Central Asian states; and, demonstrating that support to “neighbouring countries.”

    The US was also working at that time on a parallel diplomatic track to create a regional forum under its leadership to harmonise and integrate commercial, diplomatic and democratic relations between the former Soviet republics. Known as GUAM (Organization for Democracy and Economic Development) — much like today’s QUAD in the Asia-Pacific — this four-member grouping was conceived in 1997 and it comprised Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova. (Ironically, the GUAM was established in Strasbourg.)

    The US intention was to ultimately use GUAM to establish a military peacekeeping force and organise joint military exercises. In 1999, GUAM was renamed as GUUAM when Uzbekistan was admitted as a member. (Uzbekistan later withdrew from GUUAM following the US-instigated uprising in Andijan in Fergana Valley in 2005.) Of course, these geopolitical manoeuvrings by the US to hijack Central Asia to the western orbit were closely watched in Moscow and Beijing.

    Unsurprisingly, by the second half of the 1990s, Moscow began reaching out to Beijing. The incipient signs of a Sino-Russian rapprochement first appeared during Russian president Boris Yeltsin’s visit to China in December 1992. They proliferated rapidly in the increased synergy in the relations between the two countries and by the end of the decade, Moscow and Beijing had reached a mature phase in their bilateral relations with broad economic, political, cultural, and security dimensions and stable, institutionalised mechanisms binding the two powers together.

    The Central Asian region’s ancient history had reached a defining moment. Curiously, the term “strategic partnership” was first used to characterise the Sino-Russian relations during the April 1996 bilateral summit held in Beijing between Chinese leader Jiang Zemin and Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

    The Jiang-Yeltsin summit was quickly followed up in the next several days when the two leaders flew to Shanghai to meet with the leaders of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan where they signed an agreement on “confidence building in the military field of border areas.” This led to the formation of the so-called “Shanghai-5”, a loose coalition that would eventually evolve by 2001 into the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
    "

    Russia, China reinvent their moorings in Central Asia - Indian Punchline

  17. #1067
    Thailand Expat
    panama hat's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Last Online
    21-10-2023 @ 08:08 AM
    Location
    Way, Way South of the border now - thank God!
    Posts
    32,680
    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    Chinese food is famous the world over. Many of us treat ourselves to fine Chinese cuisine every now and then, and have done so for many years. Yet the food industry in China is probably the worst culprit in the world for producing fake, toxic foods. This first reached public attention in 2008 when many infants died of liver failure as a direct result of drinking milk powder that had been laced with a plastic compound called melamine. Renewed scrutiny has found many similar examples of synthetic food being illegally manufactured in China. These items look and feel just like the real thing, yet in many cases, they are toxic and could cause kidney damage or cancer. To help inform you about the danger of eating certain foods in China, or Chinese imports that you are not sure about, we’ve made this shocking list of 10 fake Chinese foods you must avoid.


    1. Fake Eggs

    The lengths some unscrupulous people go to is astonishing. These fake eggs look very much like the real thing. They are made very cheaply with gelatin, artificial food coloring, water, and a wax shell. The yolks are even said to be bounceable when dropped: that’s how unreal they are.

    2. Fake Plastic Rice

    Rice is the staple Chinese grain, yet sadly it’s not safe to assume that all the rice in China is genuine. Some rice has been manufactured entirely from potatoes mixed with an industrial resin that could be deadly. The fake rice is very hard to digest, and eating three bowls of it is said to be like eating a plastic bag. You can tell the fake rice from the real by burning a grain of it with a match and seeing whether or not you can smell burned plastic. Fake rice also dissolves in hot oil.

    3. Walnuts Stuffed with Cement It’s been discovered, by some unlucky shoppers, that markets in Zhengzhou city, China, are selling walnuts filled with cement. What’s happening is that vendors are emptying the walnuts, selling the nuts separately for a high price, then filling the empty shell with paper-covered cement and sealing it closed. The cement nuts are then sold too, allowing the vendors to make a profit.

    4. Fake Beef

    Although pork is readily available in China, beef isn’t. Therefore, because of the high market value placed on beef, vendors have found a way to manufacture fake beef by altering pork to make it taste and look like beef. They dip the pork in beef extract and glaze it, which takes well over an hour, but allows them to make a lot of money. Surprisingly, doctors say that this fake beef could cause deformity, poisoning, or cancer.

    5. Fake Mutton

    To combat the high price of mutton, some food sellers have been serving chemically altered rats, minks, and fox as if they were mutton. In the space of one three-month period, police arrested 900 people for this nefarious scheme. They also seized 20,000 tons of this ‘meat’. The level of E. coli found in the ratty meat was said to be seriously high.

    6. Fake Wines

    Wine is big business in China, but the customers are disastrously ill-informed about the products they are purchasing. Thus, many wine-sellers in China simply fill posh-looking empty wine bottles with cheap fruit juice and alcohol. You can’t trust labels in China!

    7. Fake and Adulterated Honey

    China is very bad when it comes to honey. In the Jinan Province alone, some 70% of the honey is fake, of which there are two types. The first is known as adulterated honey, that is, a blend of honey with sugar, beetroot, or rice syrup. The second looks like honey but is made from alum, sugar, water, and coloring. 1 kg of fake honey might be made for as little as $1.60 and sold for around $10.

    8. Fake Green Peas

    You wouldn’t think it, but in China green peas are often fake. They are made from a combination of snow peas, soy beans, green dye, and metabisulfite. The latter item is actually known to cause cancer and is banned from use on produce. Luckily there are some tell-tale signs of fake peas. When boiled, the water turns green from the food dye, and the peas don’t become soft.

    9. Fake Table Salt

    Cheap table salt in China is not actually what it purports to be, at least in some cases. In fact, industrial salt has made its way into the food market in a big way. Never buy salt from China, just in case it contains industrial salt. If you consume this, you are at risk of heart attack or stroke.

    10. Altered Ginseng

    Ginseng is an extremely popular medicinal and culinary root in China that is sold by weight. To make the ginseng appear heavier, some people have been boiling ginseng in sugar water. Natural ginseng is meant to contain 20% sugar, while fake ginseng may contain up to 70%.

    10 Shocking Fake Foods Made in China

    Very, very worrying but very typical of the place. Not only a few years ago but they're still doing it:



    Chinese toddlers are left with deformed heads after being raised on 'fake baby formula', report reveals


    • A shop in Hunan had sold a protein drink as formula to parents, a report said
    • Children are said to have 'big heads' after feeding on the product for months
    • Devastated parents shared pictures of their children's ballooning foreheads
    • The market watchdog has launched an investigation and vowed heavy penalty

    Multiple toddlers in China have developed deformed heads after being raised on a protein drink sold to their parents as baby formula, a report has claimed.
    Pictures provided by devastated parents show their children's foreheads having unusual swellings after they had allegedly fed on the product for months.
    The shocking revelation comes more than 10 years after toxic, chemical-laden milk powder produced by the country's largest dairy firms killed six infants and sickened nearly 300,000 babies.
    Toddlers have severely deformed heads after being raised on 'fake baby formula', report reveals | Daily Mail Online

    Despicable place

  18. #1068
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    96,555
    Quote Originally Posted by OhOh View Post
    3. Trump’s foreign policy is a monumental failure
    Pointless posting this, all the trumpanzees have fucked off.

  19. #1069
    Thailand Expat OhOh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2010
    Last Online
    Yesterday @ 08:43 PM
    Location
    Where troubles melt like lemon drops
    Posts
    25,222
    First Oil Refinery In Laos To Begin Production This Month

    By
    Phayboune Thanabouasy -

    November 27, 2020

    Eurasia Topics-first-oil-refinery-built-laos-696x364

    "The first oil refinery in Laos is expected to commence experimental fuel production on 30 November.

    According to a report in KPL News, the factory is the first oil refinery to be built in Laos, aimed at producing up to one million tons of gasoline, diesel, and gas per year.

    Deputy Director of Lao Petroleum Chemical Company Limited, Mr. Pany Phuangpheth, says the oil refinery is a joint venture between the Lao-China Petroleum Public Company Limited and Yunan Construction Company Group, which hold shares at 75 percent, while a 20 percent stake is held by the Lao State Fuel Enterprise, and 5 percent is under the Lao-China Joint Venture Company.

    The oil refinery commenced construction in 2015 at the Saysettha Development Zone in Vientiane Capital, over 280,000 square meter, and is valued at USD 179 million, according to Mr. Pany.

    Raw materials will be imported from Singapore, while domestic fuel production is expected to reduce Laos’ reliance on fuel imports, with the added effect of reducing the domestic price of oil.

    “Our company is likeyl to face some challenges entering the market and will need to work hard to ensure that we can compete with imported fuels,” said Mr. Pany.
    Located near the city center, Lao Petroleum Chemical Company Limited will ensure it properly manages environmental and safety concerns, controlling emissions and using modern distillation methods.
    The refinery has so far created 400 jobs."

    First Oil Refinery In Laos To Begin Production This Month - Laotian Times

  20. #1070
    Thailand Expat OhOh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2010
    Last Online
    Yesterday @ 08:43 PM
    Location
    Where troubles melt like lemon drops
    Posts
    25,222
    Sanakham Dam Impact Assessment Should be Broadened with Up-To-Date Information

    By
    Latsamy Phonevilay -

    November 26, 2020

    "The Sanakham hydropower project developer and the Lao government should widen the project’s impact assessment and propose additional measures to mitigate potential adverse impacts from the 684-megawatt Sanakham dam, according to a public regional forum organized by the Mekong River Commission (MRC). At the 10th MRC Regional Stakeholder Forum held yesterday in Pakse, Siem Reap, Bangkok, and Hanoi, as well as online, to consult stakeholders on the Sanakham project, some 200 attendees voiced their appreciation of the MRC for making submitted documents available in a timely and open manner, and for making many available in the riparian languages.

    The participants also raised their concerns about the project and made several recommendations to make prior consultation more meaningful and to ensure potential negative project impacts are addressed.

    For example, the participants suggested that the Lao government and the project developer, Datang (Lao) Sanakham Hydropower Co. Ltd, consider broadening its impact assessment to encompass different environmental and social dimensions, and to consider other dams and development projects to provide a more comprehensive overview of its possible impacts.

    They also maintained that the mitigation measures currently proposed by the developer were insufficient, suggesting that additional measures, including compensation mechanisms to cope with changes in livelihoods, be provided using up-to-date data and recent studies.

    As drought in 2019 and 2020 extended the dry season and affected Cambodia’s Tonle Sap reverse flow and fisheries production, the participants asked the MRC Member Countries to look into opportunities to release water from hydropower storage on the tributaries in the coming years. This would allow more sediments to flow, support downstream fish migration, and maintain the ecological balance in the Mekong mainstream.

    The forum also suggested that the MRC need to consider ways to ensure the availability of more complete and up-to-date documents and data from future projects well before the prior consultation process begins. They said this would allow for a more meaningful review of the submitted documents.

    The MRC, they added, should explore avenues to improve the information-sharing mechanisms and uptake of stakeholders’ comments into the prior consultation process and beyond. They said the MRC should inform stakeholders more clearly about which suggestions were taken on board and which were not and why.

    Vice Minister of the Lao Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Bounkham Vorachit, said in her opening remarks that her country welcomed stakeholders’ comments and suggestions on measures to improve the project.
    “We will spare no effort to ensure that serious issues are addressed before we proceed to
    implement the project,” she remarked at the virtual forum, which was attended by participants from potentially affected communities, civil society organizations, academics, the private sector, development partners, and the governments of Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand and Vietnam.

    The Sanakham dam, estimated to cost $2.073 billion, is the sixth project to be submitted for the MRC six-month prior consultation process. The proposed location is between Xayaburi and Vientiane provinces in Lao PDR, about 155 km north of Vientiane, the capital of Lao PDR, and approximately 2 km upstream of the Thai-Lao border in Loei Province.
    MRC Secretariat Chief Executive Officer, An Pich Hatda, said prior consultation for the Sanakham dam would require a shift in emphasis due to the dam’s proposed location and characteristics.

    “Strong mitigation measures for the Sanakham project are more important than ever,” Dr Hatda said, adding that construction activities and impacts that are usually only local could have transboundary effects.

    He added that the MRC Member Countries had just agreed to explore a regional funding
    mechanism to support livelihoods and ecosystem restoration projects throughout the Lower
    Mekong Basin.'


    Sanakham Dam Impact Assessment Should be Broadened with Up-To-Date Information - Laotian Times

  21. #1071
    Thailand Expat OhOh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2010
    Last Online
    Yesterday @ 08:43 PM
    Location
    Where troubles melt like lemon drops
    Posts
    25,222
    Xinhua Headlines: Xi calls for advancement of all-round cooperation with ASEAN

    Source: Xinhua| 2020-11-28 0012|Editor: huaxia

    "Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday said that China will work with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to advance all-round cooperation and maintain good momentum for development and prosperity in the region.

    Xi made the remarks via video when addressing the opening ceremony of the 17th China-ASEAN Expo and China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit held in Nanning, capital of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
    "The China-ASEAN relationship has grown into the most successful and vibrant model for cooperation in the Asia-Pacific and an exemplary effort to build a community with a shared future for mankind," Xi said.

    China continues to regard ASEAN as a priority in its neighborhood diplomacy and a key region for high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, he said.
    This year's expo, which will conclude on Nov. 30, aims to deepen cooperation in trade, the digital economy, science and technology, health, and other fields to foster a closer China-ASEAN community with a shared future.

    GREATER ECONOMIC, TRADE COOPERATION

    Xi said that as next year will mark the 30th anniversary of China-ASEAN dialogue relations, China will work with ASEAN to take their strategic partnership to a higher level.
    China welcomes the signature of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and looks forward to its early entry into force, he said. It will work with ASEAN members to sustain the smooth flow of trade, promote mutual investment, open up markets wider to each other, and foster deeply integrated industrial, supply and value chains, Xi said.

    ASEAN has become China's largest trading partner. In the first 10 months, bilateral trade between China and ASEAN increased by 7 percent year on year to 3.79 trillion yuan (about 571.64 billion U.S. dollars), accounting for 14.6 percent of China's foreign trade, according to China's General Administration of Customs.

    This year's expo also highlights the RCEP, the world's biggest trade pact, which was signed earlier this month by 15 Asia-Pacific countries, including ASEAN's 10 member states and China. It was a massive move for regional economic integration, multilateralism and free trade.

    "I believe that the RCEP will also provide a solid foundation for an open, inclusive, and rules-based global trade environment," said Myanmar President U Win Myint at the expo's opening ceremony.


    Xu Ningning, executive president of the China-ASEAN Business Council, said that opening up the markets of the 15 countries to each other will bring about new changes and closer regional cooperation.

    PROMOTING DIGITAL ECONOMY

    Stressing the need to deepen cooperation on the digital economy, Xi said China and ASEAN could create more highlights of cooperation in such areas as smart cities, 5G, artificial intelligence, e-commerce, big data, blockchain and telemedicine, and strengthen the protection of data security and policy communication and coordination.
    China will work with ASEAN on the China-ASEAN Information Harbor to advance digital connectivity and build a digital Silk Road, he added.

    The added value of China's digital economy registered 35.8 trillion yuan in 2019, accounting for 36.2 percent of the country's GDP, up 1.4 percentage points from the previous year, according to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.

    "China is one of the countries that are at the forefront in developing, investing and utilizing digital technology in the world. In this regard, advancing cooperation in the area of digital technology, under the Belt and Road Initiative, will be an important agenda in the future," said Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen via video at the expo's opening ceremony.

    It is estimated that ASEAN's digital economy will increase from 1.3 percent of the group's GDP in 2015 to 8.5 percent in 2025, according to ASEAN Secretary-General Lim Jock Hoi.
    Myanmar President U Win Myint said that the digital economy is an important segment of sustainable development, "especially at a time when we are becoming increasingly reliant on digital technology for communication, education, health care, trade, investment, stock exchange, and other forms of business activities in the face of challenges posed by the global pandemic."

    "We should also continue to encourage the exchange and transfer of modern technological know-how in order to facilitate a transition to the digital economy," said Lao Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith.

    CLOSER COOPERATION AGAINST COVID-19

    President Xi said the two sides also need to strengthen cooperation against COVID-19 and enhance capacity building in public health.

    "The COVID-19 crisis has made us realize the importance of friendship and international cooperation even more. We have witnessed weaknesses that need to be improved and strengths that need to be further enhanced and developed," Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha said via video at the ceremony.

    The crisis caused by the pandemic bears testimony to the greater need to uphold the principles of multilateralism and to strengthen international cooperation, said Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen
    .
    "

    Xinhua Headlines: Xi calls for advancement of all-round cooperation with ASEAN - Xinhua | English.news.cn


  22. #1072
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    96,555
    the oil refinery is a joint venture between the Lao-China Petroleum Public Company Limited and Yunan Construction Company Group, which hold shares at 75 percent, while a 20 percent stake is held by the Lao State Fuel Enterprise, and 5 percent is under the Lao-China Joint Venture Company.
    So they've handed control of domestic fuel prices to the chinkies.

    Lao Petroleum Chemical Company Limited will ensure it properly manages environmental and safety concerns, controlling emissions and using modern distillation methods.
    Except the chinkies run the show and they have a well-earned reputation for destroying the environment.

    The chinkies will take the rest of this in no time under their "Belt and Owed" program.

  23. #1073
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    96,555
    Vice Minister of the Lao Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Bounkham Vorachit, said in her opening remarks that her country welcomed stakeholders’ comments and suggestions on measures to improve the project.

    “We will spare no effort to listen to the orders from our chinky masters and ensure that serious issues are ignored before we proceed to
    implement the project,” she remarked at the virtual forum
    FTFY.

  24. #1074
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    96,555
    Quote Originally Posted by OhOh View Post
    Xinhua Headlines: Xi calls for advancement of all-round cooperation with ASEAN
    He seems to have forgotten to mention the bribing of officials and the economic blackmail of ASEAN countries to hand over their resources to the chinkies.

    Must have been an oversight.


  25. #1075
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    96,555
    Here's something you should read HooHoo. But you won't, because Mr. Shithole would be very angry with you.

    Book Review: Hidden Hand

    This is a remarkable book with a chilling message. The Chinese Communist party, for which dominating rural China in order to encircle its cities and win the civil war is part of its historic backstory, is now intent on doing the same internationally. Using whatever lever comes to hand – generously financing a thinktank in Washington, owning a part-share of Rotterdam port, encouraging “friendship” clubs like Britain’s 48 Group Club – it is aiming to create an international soft “discourse” and hard infrastructure that so encircles western power centres that the dominance of the party at home and abroad becomes unchallengeable.

    China, we know, has very different definitions of terrorism, human rights, security and even multilateralism to those accepted internationally. The book spells them out and shows how intent the party is on winning international acceptance for them as vital buttresses to its power. Acts of terrorism include not eating pork or speaking out against one-party “democracy”, as the Uighurs and denizens of Hong Kong are learning. Human rights should be understood as the people’s collective right for Chinese-style economic and social development. Multilateralism means states acting in harmony with China and its view that economic development is the alpha and omega of all international purpose – the vision set out in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

    The BRI is well known as President Xi’s signature policy, through which China partners with governments to build and enhance ports and the wider transport infrastructure across Asia and Africa. I knew the way the BRI is characterised as representing a “community of common destiny for humankind” is nothing more than a front for China’s geopolitical aims, but I had not realised the stunning scope and reach of it. The BRI is the centrepiece of China’s efforts to reorient the world around the interest of the Chinese Communist party. It is breathtaking in its audacity.

    Signatories to the BRI – most small states in Asia and Africa and even within the EU Italy and Greece – get access to Chinese grants and loans for developing their infrastructure. The overt quid pro quo is that Chinese civil and military traffic are prioritised in ports and airports, or as People’s Liberation Army Navy sources put it, within the BRI they “meticulously select locations, deploy discreetly, prioritise cooperation and slowly infiltrate”. But the BRI accreditation process also requires signatories to accept “China’s benevolence” – “harmonious” globalisation that accepts China’s definitions of terrorism, security, human rights and multilateralism. Any signatory had better not recognise Taiwan – or object to events in Hong Kong. As party insiders confirm, the BRI is aimed at delivering the party’s geo-strategic dominance.

    Integral to the BRI’s work is the party’s now huge and sophisticated United Front Work Department – Mao Zedong described it one of the party’s three “magic weapons”. Essentially it coordinates the party’s “scientific” efforts to win “friends” – in ethnic groups, foreign political parties, western thinktanks, overseas Chinese communities, private companies, non-Chinese nationals sitting on the advisory boards of Chinese companies like Huawei. Its methods range from organising sympathetic conferences and writing cheques to occasionally organising the clandestine seduction of foreign dignitaries to steal their secrets and the hacking of foreign computer systems.

    Under President Xi the BRI and United Front have become the twin battering rams to project Chinese power. As Hamilton and Ohlberg say, the pretence that party and state are two different spheres has been dropped under Xi. China and the Chinese Communist party are coterminous – and every enterprise in China, state-owned or private, is surveilled by a Communist party committee.

    All western states have until the last few months chosen to look the other way. After all the Chinese economy is now the world’s second biggest – and its huge investment in tech is conferring leadership in AI and 5G. The consensus has been that you have to engage with it. Britain has been no slouch. Recall George Osborne and Boris Johnson’s visit to China in 2013, innocently opening the door to the party’s control of part of our new nuclear industry – or David Cameron enjoying a beer with Xi in a Buckinghamshire pub heralding a “new golden era” in Anglo-Chinese relations. The party looks particularly kindly on Britain’s 48 Group Club, founded in 1954 to promote Anglo-Chinese trade, whose members include businessmen such as Tom Glocer, former chief executive of Reuters, along with ex-politicians Tony Blair, Michael Heseltine and Peter Mandelson. But its efforts don’t stop there. Academics, former ambassadors and even journalists like Martin Jacques, author of When China Rules the World, advocate of China’s view of globalisation and critic of Hong Kong protesters, are all cited as good examples of how the party indulges its friends with privileged access. There are parallel efforts across the EU and in the US.

    But Xi and the party’s ambitions have begun to be rumbled and challenged – a development that this book underpins. Subverting the Hong Kong treaties and breaking international law to suppress its millions of protesters under an extension of Chinese law, the suppression of the Uighurs and the growing trade aggression of the Trump administration, particularly on Huawei, have triggered the party’s first major reverses since Tiananmen Square in 1989. Boris Johnson may say he won’t be pushed into becoming a kneejerk sinophobe, but Huawei is to be excluded from Britain’s 5G network by 2027. Yet seven years ago, playing to the Europhobe gallery, he set out to charm China as an alternative to the EU. How long will his determination to confront China, post-Brexit, last? This book’s convincing message is plain. Don’t be gulled by soft talk of global harmony, or the prospect of access to the world’s second-biggest market. The Chinese Communist party aims to construct a world in which Enlightenment values are subordinate to its own. The BRI and United Front are subduing criticism and reaction even as I write. Everyone must stay on their guard.

    • Hidden Hand by Clive Hamilton and Mareike Ohlberg is published by Oneworld (£20). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Free UK p&p over £15

Page 43 of 63 FirstFirst ... 33353637383940414243444546474849505153 ... LastLast

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 3 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 3 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •