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Isaac soloman View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Isaac soloman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Dec 2018 at 10:25am
if there was money in it they will.

i know, the only reason australia embraces china is because too many have their financial futures tied with them!

china is killing the world.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Isaac soloman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Dec 2018 at 10:27am
the building in sydney in near collapse;

how much chinese input there?

will be a flurry of building inspections now.

watch the bottom fallout of high rise apartment living.

what will rust sayLOL
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Whale Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Dec 2018 at 10:30am
Originally posted by Isaac soloman Isaac soloman wrote:

if there was money in it they will.

i know, the only reason australia embraces china is because too many have their financial futures tied with them!

china is killing the world.


Christmas is all about making money, the biggest frenzied orgy of consumerism gone mad every year.

But as long as those pushing it are not Chinese Thumbs Up
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Isaac soloman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Dec 2018 at 10:40am
christmas is not all about making money.

you obviously dont have family to catch up with.

christmas is what you make it.

and the chinese who make a mint?

because westerners buy their rubbish.

want to truly save the world whale? dont buy chinese rubbishLOL
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Isaac soloman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Dec 2018 at 2:52pm

Chinese police lock down court for trial of prominent rights lawyer

ianjin: Chinese police locked down a courthouse on Wednesday at the start of the trial of a prominent rights lawyer who is accused of inciting subversion of state power and whose case has attracted widespread concern in Western capitals.

Wang Quanzhang, who took on sensitive cases of complaints of police torture and defended practitioners of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, went missing in August 2015 during a sweeping crackdown on rights activists.Most cases from that summer, known as the 709 cases for the first day of detentions on July 9, 2015, have concluded. Wang, however, was incommunicado for more than 1000 days.

An investigation said he had "for a long time been influenced by infiltrating anti-China forces" and had been trained by overseas groups and accepted their funding, according to a copy of the indictment.Police outside the court in the northern city of Tianjin told reporters they could not get near the building because it was a closed trial.

One supporter stood outside the courthouse shouting "Wang Quanzhang is a good person" and "I support Wang Quanzhang" before police forced him into a car and drove him away.There were also several Western diplomats outside the courthouse, who were likewise not allowed in.

The indictment says Wang worked with Peter Dahlin, a Swedish rights worker who was detained in China for three weeks before being deported in 2016, and others to "train hostile forces", as well as actively providing investigative reports overseas.

It also says Wang had hyped up and distorted the facts in his online statements about the case of a policeman who killed a petitioner in Heilongjiang in 2014 and of "cults" that he had defended.ahlin, now in Madrid, said on Twitter they had kept all documentation dating back to 2009 "and will release anything needed to dispel that it constitutes subverting state power".

Calls to the court seeking comment went unanswered. The trial could last just a single day, although a verdict may not come immediately.

Wang's wife, Li Wenzu, says she has been unable to visit her husband since he went missing. She said seven lawyers she appointed to try to represent Wang had also been unable to visit him.

Li said in a statement that state security agents had followed her when she left her Beijing home and blocked off the six entrances to her compound.She decided she would be unable to go to Tianjin after more than an hour spent trying to leave, she said.

It was not possible to reach the State Security Ministry for comment because it has no website or publicly available telephone number.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has strengthened efforts to quash dissent since coming to power six years ago, with hundreds of rights lawyers and activists detained and dozens jailed.

China routinely rejects foreign criticism of its human rights record, saying all Chinese are treated equally in accordance with the law and that foreign countries have no right to interfere.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Passing Through Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Dec 2018 at 3:11pm
Not much Jesus left in Christianity Isaac.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Isaac soloman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Dec 2018 at 3:41pm
you would like to think so pt

but you at least know 
His name.

the bureaucrats and public service have been left in charge for too long.

but like many things nowadays, these generations are too lazy to be interested.

there is an app/game to be developed about the bible.

only way to get their attentionLOL


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Isaac soloman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Dec 2018 at 9:30pm
over 180k viewsClapPartyLOL Party
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Afros Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Dec 2018 at 9:41pm
Should get a nomination for a Walkley then.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Tontonan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Dec 2018 at 3:57pm
The name John Pilger is likely to cause foaming at the mouth among the typical All Sports residents but his documentary 'The Coming War on China' seems to be on topic...

The Coming War Between America And China : Coming straight after the election of US President Donald Trump, this film is one of John Pilger's most timely and urgent investigations. As Trump threatens China with a trade war and worse, this documentary is both a warning and an inspiring story of people's resistance. 

Through key interviews - from Pentagon war planners in what is now Donald Trump's Washington, to members of China's new political class who rarely feature in Western reports - Pilger's film challenges the notion of the world's newest, biggest trading nation as an enemy.

Rated M
Premiere, Current Affairs, Documentary
SBS Viceland tonight 27 December at 10.25pm (125 minutes)
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Passing Through Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Dec 2018 at 4:16pm
cabo was obsessed with that movie, made me watch it. I was disappointed with it. Just looked like his greatest hits cobbled together with some new dialog. Spent most of it on the Marshall Islands and what America did to contaminate them, interviewing people living on them . I was a bit confused by it all. I could only see a few minutes in it that seemed relevant. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote furious Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Dec 2018 at 5:44pm
Well my church was filled to overflowing as usual on Christmas Eve so some of us remember to put Christ in Christmas still.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Isaac soloman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Jan 2019 at 9:37am

HOW CHINA’S ELITE HACKERS STOLE THE WORLD’S MOST VALUABLE SECRETS

IMAGINE YOU’RE A burglar. You’ve decided to tackle a high-end luxury apartment, the kind of building with multiple Picassos in the penthouse. You could spend weeks or months casing the place, studying every resident’s schedule, analyzing the locks on all the doors. You could dig through trash for hints about which units have alarms, run through every permutation of what the codes might be. Or you could also just steal the super’s keys.

According to a Justice Department indictment Thursday, that is effectively what China has done to the rest of the world since 2014. That’s when the country’s elite APT10—short for “advanced persistent threat”—hacking group decided to target not just individual companies in its long-standing efforts to steal intellectual property, but instead focus on so-called managed service providers. They’re the businesses that provide IT infrastructure like data storage or password management. Compromise MSPs, and you have a much easier path into all these clients. They're the super.“MSPs are incredibly valuable targets. They are people that you pay to have privileged access to your network,” says Benjamin Read, senior manager for cyberespionage analysis at FireEye. “It’s a potential foothold into hundreds of organizations.”

"More than two-thirds of the Justice Department’s cases involving thefts of trade secrets are connected to China."

DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL ROD ROSENSTEIN

For an even greater sense of scale: The indictment alleges, among other things, that by hacking into a single New York-based MSP, APT10 was able to compromise data from companies in a dozen countries, from Brazil to the United Arab Emirates. With a single initial intrusion, Chinese spies could leapfrog to industries as varied as banking and finance, biotech, consumer electronics, health care, manufacturing, oil and gas, telecommunications, and more. (The full indictment is at the bottom of this story.)The DOJ's indictment also outlines alleged APT10 activity that focused on government agencies and defense contractors, dating back to 2006, that took a more conventional approach. But the MSP hacks don't just show China’s hacking sophistication; they demonstrate its ruthless efficiency and determination.

“More than 90 percent of the department’s cases alleging economic espionage over the past seven years involve China,” said deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein at a press conference detailing the indictment. “More than two-thirds of the department’s cases involving thefts of trade secrets are connected to China.”

As tensions between China and the US continue to escalate on trade and other fronts, it’s worth taking a closer look at exactly how they’ve operated—and whether there is any hope of stopping them.

Down With MSP

An APT10 hack of MSPs starts like so many others in recent years: with a carefully crafted email. “C17 Antenna problems,” read the subject line of one APT10 message that hit the inbox of a helicopter manufacturer, part of the 2006 campaign. The body copy was a simple request to open the attached file, a Microsoft Word doc called “12-204 Side Load Testing.” The email appeared to come from a communications technology company. It all seemed very legit.

But of course it’s not. The Word attachments in these spear-phishing attempts were malicious, loaded with customized remote access trojans—which let hackers gain access to and control the computer—and keystroke loggers for stealing usernames and passwords.Once installed, the malware would report back to APT10-controlled domains. The group used dynamic Domain Name System service providers to host those domains, which helped them avoid detection by letting them switch up IP address on the fly. If a security filter got wise and tried to block a known malicious domain, for instance, APT10 could simply change the associated IP address and continue on its merry way.

The federal indictment mostly offers a high-level look from there, but China’s hackers followed a fairly standard playbook. Once they had established themselves on a computer, they would download still more malware to escalate their privileges, until they found what they were looking for: data.

In the case of the MSP intrusions, that malware appears to have mostly made up of customized variants of PlugX, RedLeaves—which have previously been linked to Chinese actors—and QuasarRAT, an open source remote access trojan. The malware posed as legitimate on a victim’s computer to avoid antivirus detection, and communicated with any of the 1,300 unique domains APT10 registered for the campaign.

In short, APT hackers put themselves in a position where they not only had access to MSP systems, but could move through them as an administrator might. Using those privileges, they would initiate what’s known as Remote Desktop Protocol connections with other MSP computers and client networks. Think of any time an IT staffer has taken over your computer to troubleshoot, install Photoshop, whatever. It’s like that, except instead of a friendly coworker it’s Chinese hackers hunting for secrets.And when they found those secrets? The hackers would encrypt the data and use stolen credentials to move it to a different MSP or client system before jettisoning it back to an APT10 IP address. They’d also delete the stolen files from the compromised computers, all in an effort to avoid detection. Anytime a private security company would identify APT10 domains, the group would quickly abandon them and move on to others. The quieter they were, the longer they could stay stowed away inside an MSP.“They are sophisticated,” says Read. “They take as much of their success from the ‘persistent’ part of ‘advanced persistent threat’ as the ‘advanced.’”

The hackers ultimately made off with hundreds of gigabytes of data from dozens of companies, the indictment alleges. While the Justice Department didn’t name any specific victims, the Department of Homeland Security has set up a page providing guidance for any company that thinks it might have been affected, including links to intrusion-detecting tools. Which should be helpful, given that the indictment of two Chinese hackers seems unlikely to slow the country’s ambitions.

Can’t Handle the Truce

All of this might seem surprising, given that the United States and China three years ago came to a ballyhooed agreement that they wouldn’t hack each other’s private sector interests.

In fairness, the APT10 activity detailed in the indictment started before that détente. But it also didn’t stop after the agreement went into effect: The DOJ alleges that the two Chinese nationals charged in the indictment, Zhu Hua and Zhang Shilong, have been active up through 2018. And other prominent, likely Chinese hacks that date back to around the same time, like that of the Starwood Preferred Guest system, remained active for years.China has also spent the past few years actively testing the boundaries of the truce, targeting defense contractors, law firms, and other entities that blur the lines between public and private, between intellectual property and more generalized confidential information. It has actively, and successfully, recruited spies in the US.

“No country poses a broader, more severe long-term threat to our nation’s economy and cyber infrastructure than China. China’s goal, simply put, is to replace the US as the world’s leading superpower, and they’re using illegal methods to get there,” FBI director Christopher Wray said at Thursday’s press conference. “While we welcome fair competition, we cannot and will not tolerate illegal hacking, stealing, or cheating.”One reason China persists: It may not see anything wrong with it. “From my perspective this area is going to continue to be an area of tension and contention between the US and China for the foreseeable future,” says J. Michael Daniel, who served as cybersecurity coordinator in the Obama administration. “And so the question is just how do you manage this area of friction in a way that is productive for us.”

An increasingly popular method appears to be naming and shaming, not just of Chinese hackers but those from Russiaand North Korea as well. And while it certainly sends a signal—and will upend any travel plans Zhu and Zhang may have had—it alone likely won’t put much of a dent in China’s plans.“What these groups are compromising is based on much bigger strategic imperatives than whether two people can go to California on vacation,” says FireEye’s Read.

Besides, current tensions between China and America extend far beyond hacking. There’s a trade war afoot, with a Huawei executive awaiting potential extradition. All of these interests intermingle, with aggression on different fronts ramping up and fading like some sort of geopolitical mixing board.

Meanwhile, China’s hackers will continue to rob the world blind at every opportunity. At least, though, they may now be a little less anonymous when they do.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Passing Through Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Jan 2019 at 9:42am
What do you know about Frontier Services Group Isaac?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Isaac soloman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Jan 2019 at 11:07am
just posting pt

just posting.

why do you ask?

However if you are inclined

tell us all or
Frontier Services Group
Security company
Image result for Frontier Services Group

Description

Frontier Services Group is an Africa-focused security, aviation, and logistics company founded and led by Erik Prince, the former head of Blackwater Worldwide. Prince has described FSG's main corporate mission as helping Chinese businesses to work safely in Africa.Wikipedia
Stock price0500 (HKG) HKD 1.24 -0.02 (-1.59%)
31 Dec, 11:55 am GMT+8 - Disclaimer
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Isaac soloman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Jan 2019 at 11:09am

From 'rice bunny' to 'back up the car': China's year of censorship

Online freedom has come under sustained assault from Beijing in 2018, with references to Xi Jinping’s new powers among the prohibited phrases


llustration: Getty/Guardian Design Team

China stepped up its campaign in 2018 to control what news and information its citizens can see.

While censors continued heavyhanded control for any content deemed dangerous for social stability, including Peppa Pig videos and the letter “n”, regulators also deployed more sophisticated methods, going beyond Chinese social media and working harder to curate and shape what Chinese residents consume.

Authorities have been forcing activists on Twitter to delete their accountsand shutting down the social media accounts of university professors. Apolitical content is coming under more scrutiny. In October, almost 10,000 social media accounts for outlets publishing entertainment and celebrity news were closed.The country’s largest internet companies have also stepped up self-censorship. The messaging platform WeChat issued a statement in November, promising to step up its policing of “politically harmful information” while in April, the boss of Jinri Toutiao, a content aggregator, issued a public apology more similar to self-criticisms in Mao Zedong’s era.

WeChat groups were regularly shut down and users sending messages to friends often found themselves the victim of censorship when their messages appear not to go through.

“WeChat group takedowns and news item deletions are happening with greater regularity across a shifting slate of topics,” said Rui Zhong, a programme assistant at the Kissinger Institute on China.

These were some of the banned phrases this year:

Amend the constitution’

At the March annual meeting of China’s national legislature, lawmakers voted almost unanimously to abolish term limits for the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, allowing him to stay in power indefinitely.

In the leadup to the meeting and afterwards, phrases like “amend the constitution”, “I don’t agree”, “proclaiming oneself emperor” and the letter “n” were censored. “Emigration” and “Winnie the Pooh”, a reference to Xi that has been censored off and on over the years, was also blocked.

‘Back up the car’

In September, Chinese economist Wu Xiaoping released a controversial commentary arguing that the utility of the country’s private sector had been exhausted and such companies should now step aside.

Commentators quickly criticised Wu’s proposal as “driving history backwards” to a time of a command economy. As a result, the term “back up the car” was also censored.

In addition to domestic issues, Chinese regulators also tried to limit how much the US-China trade war was discussed, and censored certain types of articles and comments on US vice-president Mike Pence’s polemical speechon China, and the arrest of senior Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou.

“Censorship focus shifted from local issues to China’s global image, foreign affairs and economy,” said King-wa Fu, head of Weiboscope and WeChatscope at Hong Kong University’s School of Journalism and media studies, a project analysing Chinese censorship.

‘Rice bunny’

In January, a woman named Luo Xixi published allegations against a professor who forced himself on her when she was a student 12 years ago. Inspired by her account and the subsequent firing of the professor, other women began posting under the hashtag #MeToo or in Chinese version, woyeshi #我也是 .When that phrase was censored, internet users began using a homonym mitu#米兔 or “rice bunny’. That too was blocked. Still the movement expanded and has led to revelations against professors, journalists, heads of NGOs, the head of a large Buddhist monastery and a well-known CCTV host.

‘Quangong carbon leakage’

In November, officials in Quanggang in the southern Fujian province reported a spillage of C9, a crude oil that is toxic to humans, off the coast of Fujian.

Local residents posted photos and accounts online of residents being sent to the hospital, arguing that the leak was more serious than officials claimed. Internet searches for “Xiamen Quangong carbon leakage” were blocked and video and posts related to the spill were deleted.

Officials initially reported that only seven tonnes of the chemical were dumped into the water. At a press conference later that month authorities admitted that almost 70 tonnes had been spilled.https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/31/from-rice-bunny-to-back-up-the-car-chinas-year-of-censorship

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Passing Through Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Jan 2019 at 11:09am
Who is the key person and founder and who is the parent company?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Isaac soloman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Jan 2019 at 12:09pm
tell me pt
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Passing Through Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Jan 2019 at 12:17pm
Do some research Isaac. If I just tell you, you will just ignore it.

Is that the same Eric Prince that Trump wants to privatize the US military in Afghanistan and Syria?

The brother of Trump's Education Secretary and under criminal investigation for his part in Trump/Russia, as well as many other criminal investigations?

What is he doing training private armies in China and Africa for the Chinese OBOR project? Check out their website for that.Wink
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Isaac soloman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Jan 2019 at 12:45pm

The Guardian view on US-China antagonism

Many of those peering with trepidation into 2019 have first turned to the past, to see what lessons history offers as a great power rises and the hegemon falters. Some look back two and a half millennia to the Peloponnesian war and the idea of the “Thucydides trap”: that war is made inevitable by the emergence of a new power (Athens) and the fear of the established leader (Sparta). Others draw on more recent transitions to suggest that powers moderate behaviour in times of decline or retrenchment. However it plays out in the long run, there is trouble ahead – and not only for the US and China.

With evidence mounting of the impact of the trade war between the world’s two largest economies, Donald Trump has boasted of “big progress” towards a potential deal. But whatever is being discussed on tariffs and intellectual property protection, few believe that the fragile ceasefire will lead to lasting harmony. Forty years after the establishment of full diplomatic relations, a broader conflict underlies the economic grievances: “On most issues of consequence, there is simply no overlap between [Xi Jinping’s] vision for China’s rise and what the United States considers an acceptable future for Asia and the world beyond,” warns Ely Ratner, a former deputy national security adviser.China rising

Mr Xi has ditched Deng Xiaoping’s maxim that China should hide its light and bide its time, instead asserting it as a great nation “approaching the centre of the world stage”. Beijing is cautious in tackling Washington, and probably sincere when it says it does not seek global hegemony. It wants international order, and the US is useful in maintaining it. But it also wants to reshape that order – and its growing reach poses new challenges.he sheer ambition of Mr Xi’s landmark Belt and Road Initiative is daunting. A deadly attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi has highlighted the potential vulnerability of one key element, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which runs through volatile areas where it is impossible to free-ride on US-created security. Beijing is undoubtedly preparing for these issues. Actually meeting them may be another matter, especially as it deals with the reaction of its public on the one hand and international players on the other.As a candidate, Mr Trump spoke of China “raping” the US. His stance resonates with voters in places where manufacturing vanished, with the jobs resurfacing half a world away. (That it helps to distract from Russian election meddling, and questions of his campaign’s complicity, is surely a bonus.) A year ago, the US national security strategy described a new era of “great power competition”. In October, the US vice-president, Mike Pence, gave a speech widely regarded as a harbinger of a new cold war. Some fear that in the longer run a hot war is not out of the question, perhaps with growing tensions over maritime power in the Pacific leading to missteps or misunderstandings.

Yet the advent of Mr Trump should have been an opportunity for China as well as a danger. Instead, the turn against Beijing is not only due to “death-by-China” hawks. It has happened across the political spectrum, and across the west. Those who once hoped for liberalisation see no hope in the face of the increasingly stifling and authoritarian domestic situation, exemplified by Nobel peace prize-winner Liu Xiaobo’s death in custody, the detention of hundreds of thousands of Uighur Muslims without charge or trial, and the axing of the presidential term limit, effectively extending Mr Xi’s rule indefinitely.

Abroad, there is increasing alarm around China’s “sharp power”: its attempt not just to seek support, through typical public diplomacy, but to determine and control views overseas, often through covert means. It is increasingly strident in its rhetoric: last year it declared that the Sino-British joint declaration on the return of Hong Kong – a legally binding agreement – no longer had “any practical significance”.

Close scrutiny

In Asia, where there have long been concerns about China’s militarisation of islands in the South China Sea, anxiety is spreading about its broader influence. Beijing’s 99-year lease on the Hambantota port – taken when Sri Lanka could not afford to repay hefty loans – has set alarm bells ringing. In Africa there is popular as well as elite concern about potential debt traps. But nations there are understandably unimpressed by a man who reportedly called them “gelatiholes” and whose recent “Africa strategy” is blatantly more about China than the continent. Another US president might steer a defter and wiser course, yet still might not provide more of the money and infrastructure they are seeking.

In this charged and delicate environment, smaller nations are especially vulnerable, either as incidental damage or because they are a safer target than the US: Canadian citizens are essentially being held hostage in the Huawei row. The US president not only humiliates his allies but offers to undercut them. Other countries must attempt to pick their way through, defending their own interests.

To do so they need to devote more attention and resources to understanding what China is doing and why it matters, neither ignoring nor reflexively opposing its actions. Beijing’s “16+1” diplomatic platform with central and eastern European nations is perfectly legitimate, but the EU should follow its work closely. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank will provide much-needed funding; its operations also deserve close scrutiny. Especially keen awareness is needed of the attempts to reshape narratives and muffle discussion of human rights.

Solidarity

Tactics matter too. Any attempt to target the Chinese diaspora would be wrong and counterproductive; alarmingly, the Trump administration reportedly considered ending Chinese student visas. And when the US president does not show allies respect, as his outgoing defence secretary has made clear, solidarity elsewhere is all the more crucial. The EU’s members have a tendency to sell out long-term collective interests for short-term individual advantage. Yet it is essential. And Britain is now choosing to go it alone.

That is especially perilous when our economies and people are interconnected as never before, with common as well as competitive interests. Some fear the danger of China doing not too much but too little. On climate change it is stepping up as the US steps away – albeit falling well short of what is needed. The past offers necessarily imperfect parallels for this globalised age. It can warn us of traps and obstacles, but cannot plot the difficult path ahead.https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/31/the-guardian-view-on-us-china-antagonism

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Passing Through Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 Jan 2019 at 9:39am
I think they are listening to you Isaac.Wink



CHINA BUILDS EXPERIMENTAL ANTENNA FIVE TIMES THE SIZE OF NEW YORK CITY IN SECRET LOCATION

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Isaac soloman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 Jan 2019 at 11:06am

Birth Tourism’ Is Legal in Canada. A Lawmaker Calls it Unscrupulous.

Melody Bai arrived in Vancouver from China in the late stages of pregnancy with one goal: to give birth to a Canadian baby.

Awaiting her was an elaborate ecosystem catering to pregnant women from China, including a spacious “baby house” where she spent four months, attended to by a Mandarin-speaking housekeeper.Caregivers offered free breast massages to promote lactation, outings to the mall, lectures on childbirth with other Chinese mothers-to-be and excursions for high tea.

“It’s an investment in my child’s education,” Ms Bai, a 28-year-old flight attendant, said by phone from Shanghai, months after returning to China with her newborn and passport in hand. “We chose Canada because of its better natural and social environment.”In Richmond, which is outside Vancouver, about 71 percent of roughly 200,000 residents are ethnic Chinese.

Ms. Bai is part of a growing phenomenon in Canada known as birth tourism, which is not only generating political opposition, but mobilizing self-appointed vigilantes determined to stop it.

It is perfectly legal.

Under the principle of jus soli — the right of the soil — being born in Canada confers automatic citizenship. But as more pregnant women arrive each month to give birth, some Canadians are protesting that they are gaming the system, testing the limits of tolerance and debasing the notion of citizenship.

In Richmond, a city outside Vancouver where about 53 percent of its roughly 200,000 residents are ethnic Chinese, nonresident mothers account for one in five births at the Richmond Hospital, the largest number of nonresident births of any hospital in the country, according to a recent report.

“Birth tourism may be legal, but it is unethical and unscrupulous,” said Joe Peschisolido, a Liberal member of Parliament in Richmond, who brought a petition against the practice to Ottawa, where the immigration minister, Ahmed Hussen, said he would examine the issue.

The practice underlines how Canada, and British Columbia in particular, has become a favoured haven for well-heeled Chinese seeking a refuge for wealth and kin away from authoritarian China.

The issue of birthright citizenship gained global attention in October after President Trump said he wanted to eliminate it, though it is enshrined in the American Constitution.

At least 30 other countries, including Canada, Mexico and Brazil, grant automatic birthright citizenship. Others like Britain and Australia have tightened their laws by requiring that at least one parent be a citizen or permanent resident at the time of the child’s birth.

Indicating that immigration could be an issue in federal elections next year in Canada, the opposition Conservative party this summer endorsed a nonbinding motion calling for unconditional birthright citizenship to be abolished.

In the recent report, from the Institute for Research on Public Policy, Andrew Griffith, a former director general at the government department responsible for immigration, showed that the number of children born to nonresidents in Canada was at least five times as high as previously thought — close to 1,500 to 2,000 annually.Mr Griffith argues that Canada intended birthright citizenship for those who wanted to live in and contribute to the country. “Since those engaging in birth tourism have no or barely any real link to Canada,” he said, “the practice is challenging a very Canadian value of fair play.”

With its sprawling Chinese food markets, Chinese-language newspapers and large number of caregivers speaking Mandarin, Richmond has become ground zero for birth tourists from China.

About two dozen baby houses are in operation. Visits to about 15 addresses showed that some operate openly while others work under licenses as tour agencies or present themselves as holiday rentals.

Some are in homes. Others are in apartments. Many are booked through agents and brokers in China.

In a visit to one, the Baoma Inn, a modern house across from a park, a woman in the late stages of pregnancy could be seen in a second-floor window.

A young man who answered the door confirmed that the inn was a baby house before another angrily slammed the door.

But during a telephone call in Mandarin inquiring about the Inn’s services, a man said it offered a one-stop package including “guaranteed appointments” with “the No. 1 obstetrician in British Columbia,” who spoke Mandarin and had “a zero accident rate.Customers usually stay for three months, he said, including one month after the birth, to allow time to apply for a passport for the newborn and to recuperate, as is the Chinese custom.

He added that his agency had seven sales offices in China. The bill for a three-month stay at a two-bedroom apartment, not including meals and prenatal care, is about 25,000 Canadian dollars ($18,331).

“The women all go back to China,” he said. “They don’t enjoy any social benefits from the Canadian government and don’t need it.”

Bob Huang, who with his wife runs Anxin Labour Service, a birthing centre in the nearby city of Burnaby, said he was frequently contacted by agents in China who wanted a 50 percent commission on every successful referral. He said he preferred to post his own ads on local Chinese classifieds websites.

Some Richmond residents say birth tourism is undermining the community’s social fabric.

Kerry Starchuk, a self-described “hockey mom” who spearheaded the petition championed by Mr Peschisolido, documents baby houses in her neighbourhood and passes the information on to the local news media and city officials.On a recent morning, she received an anonymous tip on Facebook that as many as 20 pregnant “birth tourists” from China were being housed in a nearby modernist high rise.

Rushing to her minivan, she drove to a parking garage beneath a Chinese supermarket. She then hurried outside to case out a nearby building, suspiciously eyeing a pregnant Chinese woman walking by. After entering the building, Ms Starchuk was foiled by a locked stairwell, adding the high rise to her list for another day.

Ms Starchuk complains that birth tourists bump local mothers from maternity wards, a concern echoed by some local nurses, and get access to public services without paying taxes.

She also said the so-called “anchor babies” threatened to burden Canada by emigrating and studying here, and sponsoring their parents to become permanent residents.

The issue has become conflated with resentment in the Vancouver area against soaring housing prices, which some residents blame on an influx of wealthy Chinese.

But Ms Bai, who had her baby in Vancouver in February, said that given the hefty price she had paid to give birth here — 60,000 Canadian dollars, including housing and hospitalization — she was subsidizing the Canadian health care system and contributing to the local economy.

“My child won’t be enjoying any Canadian health benefits, as we are living in China,” she said.

Since her son is Canadian, however, she and her husband, a pilot, could save about 150,000 Canadian dollars on tuition fees at an international school in Shanghai.After gaining fluency in English and Western culture, her son could also later attend a Canadian university at the discounted local rate. Eventually, the entire family could emigrate to Canada.

Some first- and second-generation immigrants oppose birth tourists for jumping the queue.

“I don’t think it is fair to come here, give birth and leave,” said Wendy Liu, a Richmond resident of 11 years, adding that she had been repeatedly harassed after Ms Starchuk mistakenly put her house on a list of birth tourism centres.

Birth tourism at Richmond Hospital recently came under the spotlight because of a so-called “million dollar baby.”

A nonresident, Yan Xia, gave birth there, racked up a bill of 312,595 Canadian dollars in maternity and neonatal care for her newborn due to complications, and then absconded without paying the bill, according to a civil claim the hospital filed at British Columbia’s Supreme Court in April, six years after Ms Xia gave birth.

The health authority running the hospital said that giving birth was considered an “emergency” and that the hospital never denied care based on where a patient is from or how much money she has.

Including six years’ worth of interest, Ms Xia’s bill would amount to about 1.2 million Canadian dollars.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/%E2%80%98birth-tourism%E2%80%99-is-legal-in-canada-a-lawmaker-calls-it-unscrupulous/ar-BBRFhHP
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dr E Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 Jan 2019 at 9:55pm
There could be a job for you in Canada macca, and I don't mean organising high teas ...

 Awaiting her was an elaborate ecosystem catering to pregnant women from China, including a spacious “baby house” where she spent four months, attended to by a Mandarin-speaking housekeeper.Caregivers offered free breast massages to promote lactation, outings to the mall, lectures on childbirth with other Chinese mothers-to-be and excursions for high tea.
In reference to every post in the Trump thread ... "There may have been a tiny bit of license taken there" ... Ok, Thanks for the "heads up" PT!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote acacia alba Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 Jan 2019 at 10:01pm
LOLThumbs UpWink
animals before people.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Passing Through Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Jan 2019 at 1:56pm

North Korea's Kim Jong-un takes train to China - BBC News

Published on Jan 8, 2019
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has arrived in Beijing by train for an unannounced visit, at the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping. Mr Kim's distinctive green and yellow train arrived at a station in Beijing on Tuesday afternoon. It is his fourth visit to China in less than a year.


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dr E Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Jan 2019 at 7:21pm
What do you think the reason for his visits has been ...

free breast massages to promote lactation, outings to the mall, lectures on childbirth 
In reference to every post in the Trump thread ... "There may have been a tiny bit of license taken there" ... Ok, Thanks for the "heads up" PT!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Whale Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 Feb 2019 at 8:33am

President Xi Jinping’s vision of a new China has struck a great wall

President Xi Jinping’s vision of a glorious China has struck a great wall. Economic and diplomatic supremacy was supposed to open-up new silk roads. Instead, he’s overreached. Now everything he says or does is met with suspicion.

Beijing is being accused of worldwide hacking attempts to steal a technological lead.

The draconian surveillance and ‘social credit’ system being imposed on the Chinese people is raising eyebrows.

Mass detention and re-education of ethnic Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang has even once-friendly nations expressing dismay.

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/president-xi-jinpings-vision-of-a-new-china-has-struck-a-great-wall/news-story/2e4d029d9b68e52b3dc48a5d22241129

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Isaac soloman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 Feb 2019 at 11:54am
you are wasting your time whale posting this here.

it seems tbv is owned by china.  Hard to find those details. 

would the punters here be happy if they thought profits here are going to china?

but im pleased to see the world is waking up to china.

not sure about pt's quip about the world will be owned by china soon.

hi gay, dizzy etcHug is this a pending approval post? 


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Passing Through Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 Feb 2019 at 12:01pm
Welcome back Isaac. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Passing Through Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 Feb 2019 at 12:28pm
Originally posted by Isaac soloman Isaac soloman wrote:

you are wasting your time whale posting this here.

it seems tbv is owned by china.  Hard to find those details. 

would the punters here be happy if they thought profits here are going to china?

but im pleased to see the world is waking up to china.

not sure about pt's quip about the world will be owned by china soon.

hi gay, dizzy etcHug is this a pending approval post? 



Basic maths Isaac. Their economy is growing 2-3 times faster than the rest of the world, including the US.

When their GDP catches up to US or Europe, their economy will be 4-5 times the US and 3 times Europe's.
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