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China Denies Shipping Marinated Human Flesh in Cans to Be Sold as FOOD in Africa

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China has strenuously denied reports that it’s routinely canning human flesh and selling it as food to African nations.

A top official has dismissed reports in Zambia which queried the provenance of some ‘meat products’ being shipped from China to the African continent.

In the media reports, an unnamed Zambian woman living in China reportedly issued warnings to Africans not to eat corned beef.

She claimed that dead human bodies were being collected and marinated before being canned and labelled as corned beef for human consumption .

But the statement, issued by the Chinese Ambassador to Zambia, Yang Youming, blames people spreading “malicious” rumours. (Read more from “China Denies Shipping Marinated Human Flesh in Cans to Be Sold as FOOD in Africa” HERE)

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Wife of Chinese Church Leader Reportedly Buried Alive and Killed After Protesting Church’s Demolition

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summit-cross-225578_960_720 (1)Two members of a church demolition team in China’s central Henan province buried a house church leader and his wife alive Thursday when the pair tried to prevent the destruction of their church, according to local news sources. Though the church leader managed to escape, his wife suffocated to death before she could be freed.

The couple had petitioned the destruction of their church, China Aid reported Monday.

On April 14, a government-sponsored company sent workers to bulldoze Beitou Church in Zhumadian. The order came after a local developer expressed interest in the church’s valuable land.

When the demolition crew showed up, Li Jiangong, the church leader, and his wife, Ding Cuimei, stepped in front of the bulldozers to protest the demolition.

“Bury them alive for me,” one of the workers said, according to China Aid. “I will be responsible for their lives.” (Read more from “Wife of Chinese Church Leader Reportedly Buried Alive and Killed After Protesting Church’s Demolition” HERE)

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Why China’s Economy Is on Borrowed Time

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maxresdefault (93)On Friday China announced its economy had expanded at a 6.7 percent rate in the first quarter of 2016. While this is the slowest growth since the depths of the great recession, it conveniently remains within the government’s official target of 6.5-7.0 percent. Unlike all developed countries, there will be no revisions to this figure in the coming months or quarters.

There were two factors that kept Beijing’s growth within its target range: Easy money and the property market. The level of “total social financing,” or borrowing, rose 16 percent in March from a year ago.

This was fueled by the bond issuance by local governments as part of its bailout program and investment in ‘fixed asset investment’ which is largely composed of infrastructure and factories.

With total debt approaching 300 percent of GDP and massive overcapacity in many industries such as coal, cement, chemicals and refining, this development only exacerbates China’s serious structural problems.

The property market witnessed a strong recovery in China’s largest cities, causing property investment to rise at its fastest pace in a year. Outside the largest four cities, however, where 95 percent of home sales occurred, the housing sector remains sluggish. With an estimated 70 million inventory of unsold homes, China’s housing construction rebound does nothing to begin resolving this problem.

If this pattern sounds eerily familiar, it should. Debt issuance, investment in factories and the property market have been consistently the engines for growth since the economic crisis and beyond. China’s economic plan to move toward a more market-oriented policy, such as improving property rights, financial sector liberalization and Hukou reform (giving the massive migrant work force basic rights in urban areas) have been slow in development or nonexistent.

How long can this trend last? As the well-known economist Herb Stein once said, “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” (For more from the author of “Why China’s Economy Is on Borrowed Time” please click HERE)

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Chinese Scientists Genetically Modify Human Embryos—Again

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Just one year after scientists in China made history by modifying the DNA of human embryos, a second team of Chinese researchers has done it again. Using CRISPR/Cas9, the researchers introduced HIV-resistance into the embryos, showcasing the tremendous potential for gene-editing.

In that earlier work, the Chinese scientists modified a gene responsible for a fatal blood disorder, but the embryos were quickly destroyed after the experiment. It was a watershed moment in biotechnology, showcasing the tremendous potential of CRISPR—a powerful gene editing tool—to alter our offspring at the genetic level. Should this technology ever reach the clinical stage, it could be used to eliminate all sorts of genetic diseases, but it could also be used to introduce entirely new capacities.

Now, as reported in Nature News, a research team led by Yong Fan at Guangzhou Medical University has used CRISPR to introduce a beneficial mutation that cripples an immune-cell gene called CCR5. Some humans naturally have this built-in immunity to HIV, making it impossible for the virus to infiltrate human immune cells.

For the study, the researchers collected 213 fertilized human eggs, donated by 87 patients. All of the embryos were unsuitable for in vitro fertilization because they contained an extra set of chromosomes. The researchers destroyed the embryos after three days. (Read more from “Chinese Scientists Genetically Modify Human Embryos—Again” HERE)

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China Acquiring U.S.A. One Company at a Time

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What’s the best way for a country like China to exert its influence over the U.S. economy? Acquire American-owned companies like Chinese-owned Haier just did when they purchased General Electric’s (GE) appliance business for $5.4 billion . . .

America can no longer claim to be an independent nation when our manufacturing base is under foreign ownership or foreign control. After all, ownership equals control, and control equals sovereignty. We lose our sovereignty as a nation when foreign companies buy our land, factories, and companies.

How so? Because the more Chinese and other foreign companies establish ownership of American assets, plants and factories, the more they have the right to demand how our U.S economy is run, because how it is run affects them, too.

So since GE’s appliance business (not the entire company) is now under foreign ownership and therefore foreign control, what options are left for patriotic American consumers who want to keep profits, jobs, and tax revenue within the borders of the United States?

Whirlpool just happens to be the only remaining major American-owned appliance company in the United States, and we need to support them with our consumer dollars when we shop for appliances. Whirlpool owns such popular brands as Maytag, Amana, KitchenAid, and Jenn-Air. (Read more from “China Acquiring U.S.A. One Company at a Time” HERE)

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China, Russia Planning Space Attacks on U.S. Satellites

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China and Russia are preparing to attack and disrupt critical U.S. military and intelligence satellites in a future conflict with crippling space missile, maneuvering satellite, and laser attacks, senior Pentagon and intelligence officials told Congress on Tuesday.

Air Force Gen. John Hyten, commander of the Air Force Space Command, said the threat to U.S. space systems has reached a new tipping point, and after years of post-Cold War stagnation foreign states are focused on curbing U.S. space systems.

“Adversaries are developing kinetic, directed-energy, and cyber tools to deny, degrade, and destroy our space capabilities,” Hyten said in a prepared statement for a hearing of the House Armed Service strategic forces subcommittee.

“They understand our reliance on space, and they understand the competitive advantage we derive from space. The need for vigilance has never been greater,” the four-star general said.

Hyten said U.S. Global Positioning System satellites remain vulnerable to attack or jamming. The satellites’ extremely accurate time-keeping feature is even more critical to U.S. guided weapons than their ability to provide navigation guidance, he said. (Read more from “China, Russia Planning Space Attacks on U.S. Satellites” HERE)

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The U.S. Is Heading Toward a Dangerous Showdown With China

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The Obama administration is moving toward what could be a dangerous showdown with China over the South China Sea.

The confrontation has been building for the past three years, as China has constructed artificial islands off its southern coast and installed missiles and radar in disputed waters, despite U.S. warnings. It could come to a head this spring, when an arbitration panel in The Hague is expected to rule that China is making “excessive” claims about its maritime sovereignty.

What makes this dispute so explosive is that it pits an American president who needs to affirm his credibility as a strong leader against a risk-taking Chinese president who has shown disregard for U.S. military power and who faces potent political enemies at home.

“This isn’t Pearl Harbor, but if people on all sides aren’t careful, it could be ‘The Guns of August,’” says Kurt Campbell, former assistant secretary of state for Asia, referring to the chain of miscalculations that led to World War I. The administration, he says, is facing “another red line moment where it has to figure out how to carry through on past warnings.” (Read more from “The U.S. Is Heading Toward a Dangerous Showdown With China” HERE)

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Unease Over Chinese Investors Buying Farms Down Under

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With Chinese buyers eyeing farm land in Australia and New Zealand, authorities are coming under growing pressure to balance the need for foreign investment against accusations of “selling out.”

Currently up for sale is the S. Kidman and Co. Limited cattle empire — a vast Outback estate which covers 1.3 percent of Australia’s land mass and has an average herd of 185,000 cattle.

Treasurer Scott Morrison blocked its sale to all foreign investors in November, including from China, saying it was contrary to the national interest given part of the holding overlaps with a military testing range.

But Morrison recently approved the sale of Australia’s largest dairy farming business to a Chinese buyer, despite criticism that businessman Lu Xianfeng’s Aus$280 million (US$210 million) purchase of Tasmania’s Van Diemen’s Land Company could impact food security.

In a statement headed “Sell Out”, independent Senator Nick Xenophon labelled the decision “wrong, wrong, wrong” saying Morrison failed to give sufficient weight to an alternative Australian bid. (Read more from “Unease Over Chinese Investors Buying Farms Down Under” HERE)

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Inside China’s Plan for a Military That Can Counter U.S. Muscle

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With a series of edicts, speeches and martial ceremonies, President Xi Jinping has over the past six months unveiled China’s biggest military overhaul since the aftermath of the Korean War.

The plan seeks to transform the 2.3-million-member People’s Liberation Army, which features 21st-century hardware but an outdated, Soviet-inspired command structure, into a fighting force capable of winning a modern war. China is shifting from a “large country to a large and powerful one,” Xi explained in November. The restructuring will be a major focus of the country’s new defense budget, which will be announced Saturday as the annual National People’s Congress gets under way in Beijing . . .

Here are the key elements of Xi’s plan:

The first piece of the overhaul — announced by Xi during a grand military parade through Tiananmen Square on Sept. 3 — calls for eliminating 300,000 PLA personnel by 2017. While Xi presented the cutbacks as proof of China’s commitment to peace, they’ll largely target non-combat personnel and should make the country’s forces more focused and efficient . . .

Advanced military actions such as intercepting rival aircraft, carrying out drone strikes and using special forces to extract hostages, demand the sort of close collaboration China’s army-centric military has lacked. Xi intends to fix that by reorganizing the armed forces into five branches under a joint-command structure modeled after that of the U.S. (Read more from “Inside China’s Plan for a Military That Can Counter U.S. Muscle” HERE)

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China Warns U.S. After Trump Wins Nevada Caucus

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China warned the United States on Wednesday not to adopt punitive currency policies that could disrupt U.S.-China relations after Donald Trump’s win in the Nevada caucus.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters in Beijing that “we are following with interest the U.S. presidential election.”

Hua was asked about China’s response to a possible Trump presidency and his announced plan to punish China for currency manipulation with a tax on Chinese goods.

“Since it belongs to the domestic affair of the U.S., I am not going to make comments on specific remarks by the relevant candidate,” she said.

“But I want to stress that China and the U.S., as world’s largest developing and developed countries, shoulder major responsibilities in safeguarding world peace, stability and security and driving world development,” the spokeswoman added. (Read more from “China Warns U.S. After Trump Wins Nevada Caucus” HERE)

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