Important Takeaways:
- Chinese Spy Balloons Spotted Over Taiwan Ahead of Critical Elections
- Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense has reported that four Chinese spy balloons were detected floating over the island nation this week. The first was identified Monday, with three more spotted flying over the island on Tuesday. Chinese spy balloons have previously been detected flying near Taiwan, but this is the first time officials have reported such balloons crossing directly over the island nation.
- According to ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Sun Li-fang, the balloons appeared to be the kind designed to collect atmospheric data. “As for whether they have other purposes,” he said, the government “is closely monitoring and controlling the situation, taking appropriate measures, and summarizing their flight paths for judgment and analysis.”
- A similar balloon was found floating over the U.S. in January last year and was eventually shot down. Despite Beijing’s claims that it was merely a weather balloon that had drifted off course, an analysis of the debris by U.S. government agencies found that the balloon carried specialized equipment used to collect photos and videos, as well as other kinds of data.
- The appearance of the Chinese balloons over Taiwan comes as the country is preparing for a three-way presidential election on January 13, in which both opposition candidates have expressed a desire to take a more friendly approach to China than the current ruling Party.
- The appearance of the Chinese spy balloons over Taiwan comes barely a week after former U.S. Navy Seal Erik Prince predicted that China will invade Taiwan during the spring of this year.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- It is time for all member nations of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Argentina, Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) to drop the United States dollar in favor of local currencies for financial relations and settlements, according to Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov this week, at the Russia-China Financial Dialogue forum in Beijing.
- “We need to further develop financial cooperation within the BRICS countries,” Siluanov added. “Here we see opportunities … to develop a payments system that would be independent of the infrastructure, which does not always fully fulfill the goals of individual countries.”
- “Therefore, the sustainable development of financial relations and settlements on the BRICS platform is important for us, and we believe that it is necessary to work out such issues, and today we will consider a number of them.”
- Many BRICS partners are already making trades with local or alternative currencies after sanctions stemming from the war in Ukraine effectively cut Moscow off from the Western financial system.
- Rather than kowtow to Western demands, Russia and its partners have instead been laying the groundwork for a new world order that will eventually cut off the West from global trade after the U.S. has been unseated as the global economic superpower.
- Communist China is quickly rising to the top of the trade heap with all of its cheaply made junk, and Russia is helping it and the other BRICS member nations further dethrone the U.S. by encouraging financial transactions in other currencies.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- China urges regional alert as US military steps up forward deployment
- China’s defense ministry on Thursday urged the Asia-Pacific to be on high alert as the United States steps up forward military deployment in the region, after reports of a U.S. plan to revive a Pacific airfield that launched atomic bombings of Japan.
- The Chinese military is paying close attention to moves by the United States, and will firmly safeguard China’s maritime rights, security and sovereignty in the region, Wu Qian, a spokesperson at the defense ministry, told a regular news conference.
- Earlier in December, a U.S. air force general told Japan’s Nikkei newspaper that the U.S. military will make “significant progress” towards reclaiming the Tinian North airfield from overgrown jungle vegetation in the coming months, as part of a plan to disperse aircraft across the Indo-Pacific region as China’s missile threat grows.
- The airfield, abandoned after World War II, lies on Tinian Island, part of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory, and about 200 kilometers (124 miles) north of Guam.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Intelligence officials have revealed a Chinese spy balloon that flew across the US for a week in February used an American internet service provider to communicate.
- The balloon had drifted east and entered US airspace over Alaska on 28 January and was tracked as it flew over Malmstrom Air Force base in Montana, where nuclear assets are stored.
- On 4 February, the Air Force sent an F-22 fighter jet armed with an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile to take the balloon down over water.
- In a new report from NBC, the outlet cited two current and one former U.S. official familiar with the report as its source.
- The report stated that the balloon was connected to a US-based company and communicating with China about its navigation.
- It further stated that the connection ‘allowed the balloon to send burst transmissions or high-bandwidth collections of data over short periods of time’ to its home base in China.
- The channel has not released the name of the company.
- The unidentified internet service provider company has denied all such claims.
- This comes days after it was revealed that officials in the Biden administration had planned to keep the Chinese spy balloon secret, with a top Air Force commander admitting the balloon exposed gaps in their intelligence gathering.
- A source told NBC: ‘Before it was spotted publicly, there was the intention to study it and let it pass over and not ever tell anyone about it.’
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Xi vows to prevent anyone ‘splitting Taiwan from China’
- President Xi Jinping vowed on Tuesday to resolutely prevent anyone from “splitting Taiwan from China in any way”, the official Xinhua news agency reported, a little more than two weeks before Taiwan elects a new leader.
- China views democratically-governed Taiwan as its own territory, despite the strong objections of the government in Taipei, and has ramped up military and political pressure to assert its sovereignty claims.
- Taiwan holds presidential and parliamentary elections on Jan. 13 and how the island handles relations with China is a major point of contention on the campaign trail.
- Xi said “the complete reunification of the motherland is an irresistible trend”.
- “The motherland must be reunified, and inevitably will be reunified,” Xinhua cited Xi as telling senior officials from the Communist Party.
- China says the Taiwan election is an internal Chinese affair but that the island’s people face a choice between war and peace and any attempt at Taiwan independence means war.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- At least 131 killed, 700 injured in China’s deadliest earthquake in 9 years
- A devastating earthquake, measuring 6.2 in magnitude, rocked northwestern China shortly before midnight on Monday. The seismic event, impacting Gansu and Qinghai provinces, stands as the most lethal earthquake in China in the past nine years, claiming the lives of at least 131 individuals and injuring over 700.
- The disaster left residents in dire conditions, with many spending the night in tents in freezing temperatures, the newswire noted.
- The quake also caused landslides, complicating rescue efforts. Emergency workers are searching for missing persons, with Qinghai officials reporting 16 missing in a landslide.
- According to Reuters, 78 people were found alive in Gansu, where rescue operations concluded Tuesday afternoon. Attention is now turning to treating the injured and resettling residents as they brace for the challenges of the approaching months-long winter.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Russia calls on BRICS to ditch dollar
- The statement was made at the Russia-China Financial Dialogue forum in Beijing on Monday, where Siluanov met with his Chinese counterpart, Lan Foan.
- The BRICS group of emerging economies – which currently incorporates Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – has been discussing ways to facilitate payments in local currencies between member countries. The bloc aims to reduce their reliance on the US dollar and the euro for accelerated growth.
- “We need to further develop financial cooperation within the BRICS countries. Here we see opportunities … to develop a payments system that would be independent of the infrastructure, which does not always fully fulfill the goals of individual countries,” Siluanov stated.
- “Therefore, the sustainable development of financial relations and settlements on the BRICS platform is important for us, and we believe that it is necessary to work out such issues, and today we will consider a number of them,” he added.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- China defense report links high-altitude spy balloons to hypersonic missile program
- New Beijing command looks to dominate ‘near-space’ — domain the U.S. says does not exist
- China’s high-altitude balloon program is linked to the military’s hypersonic missile program and a new command for both systems is prepared to conduct “merciless” attacks in a future conflict with the United States, according to a Chinese defense research report.
- The report by a group of researchers at the National University of Defense Technology states that the military set up a new command for both hypersonic missiles and the high-altitude balloons — like the suspected surveillance balloon shot down in February off the South Carolina coast by an Air Force jet fighter after traversing much of the continental U.S.
- The report, “Near Space Operations Command,” made public during a Beijing conference on command and control in October, said the new operations command will direct hypersonic missiles against heavily protected targets, including communications equipment and hubs in the heartland of an adversary.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Now DENMARK battles surge in same type of ‘white lung syndrome’ pneumonia sparking fears in China – after Netherlands warned of alarming spike in cases
- Denmark is currently being hit by a surge in the same type of pneumonia that has rocked China and sparked fears of a fresh pandemic.
- Danish health chiefs say rates of mycoplasma pneumoniae, a bacterial infection for which some antibiotics are useless, has reached ‘epidemic’ levels.
- Beijing has pointed to the same pathogen as being partly to blame for its ‘mystery’ wave of pneumonia — characterized by a dangerous inflammation of the lungs — in children.
- Denmark’s Statens Serum Institut (SSI) revealed rates have tripled over the past five weeks and warned more kids will be struck down this winter.
- It comes just days after the Netherlands reported its own alarming spike in children battling pneumonia, with similar reports in Denmark’s neighbor Sweden.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- HANDS, FACE, SPACE China brings back masks & social distancing in chilling echo of lockdown over mystery outbreak 4 years on from Covid
- Alarming footage has emerged of mask-wearing crowds inside Chinese hospitals as fears of a new pandemic sweep across the globe.
- Areas in the north of the country such as Beijing and Liaoning have been hit the hardest, with reports emerging last week that hospitals are being overwhelmed with sick children.
- A common bacterial infection called mycoplasma pneumoniae has circulated since May but is now showing ground glass opacity in lung scans – an indicator of severe respiratory illness.
- Also known as “white lung syndrome”, many parents are deeply worried and are having to wait at least a day just for emergency care.
- But China continues to insist that flu and the usual winter bugs are to blame for the latest outbreak, rather than a new virus, and can cope with the spike in sickness.
Read the original article by clicking here.
