South Korea dismisses Pyongyang’s peace call
South Korea has dismissed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s calls for improved ties, urging his government to take nuclear disarmament steps first. Kim Eui-do, South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman, told reporters on Friday that North Korea …
Read More →China to centralise military command to improve operations
China’s increasingly sophisticated military will establish a joint operational command structure for its forces to improve coordination between different parts of the country’s defence system, the official China Daily reported on Friday. China has been moving rapidly to upgrade its military hardware, but military analysts say operational integration of complex and disparate systems across a regionalised command structure is a major challenge for Beijing. In the past, regional level military commanders have enjoyed major latitude over their forces and branches of the military have remained highly independent of each other, making it difficult to exercise the centralised control necessary to use new weapons systems effectively in concert. The English-language newspaper, citing the Defence Ministry, said that China will implement a joint command system “in due course” and that it has already launched pilot programmes to that effect.
China tells police to be loyal to party amid graft crackdown
China’s police chief wrote on Friday that his officers must uphold the leadership of the Communist Party and be loyal to it, as the government targets the domestic security apparatus in a crackdown on corruption. Sources have told Reuters that China’s former security tsar, Zhou Yongkang, one of the most powerful politicians of the decade, has been put under effective house arrest while the party investigates corruption allegations against him. Last month, the government began a graft investigation into a one-time deputy public security minister, Li Dongsheng, an ally of Zhou’s. Li held a rank equivalent to cabinet minister, and state media says he is the first member of the ruling party’s Political and Legal Affairs Committee, the influential domestic security body which Zhou used to head, to be investigated for graft. Writing in the party’s official People’s Daily, Public Security Minister Guo Shengkun said his more than two million officers had to be “absolutely loyal and absolutely clean” and stand steadfastly in line with the orders and politics of President Xi Jinping.
NSA eyes encryption-breaking ‘quantum’ machine
The US National Security Agency is making strid es toward building a “quantum computer” that could break nearly any kind of encryption, The Washington Post reported Thursday. The Post said leaked documents from fugitive ex-NSA contractor Edward Sn…
Read More →China plans joint military command system: state media
China’s armed forces plan to set up a joint operational command system to “enhance efficiency” in crisis response, state media reported Friday. At present the People’s Liberation Army, (PLA) the world’s biggest military, which incorporates China’s navy and air force, is arranged on a geographical system with land forces at its core and dividing the country into seven regions. Now the military has “launched positive pilot programmes” for a joint operational command system and will establish the system “in due course”, the state-run China Daily newspaper said, citing the defence ministry. The defence ministry said its military modernisation was not aimed at any country, the China Daily said.
Schumacher: Ferrari Mark F1 Driver’s Birthday
Michael Schumacher’s family have thanked the public for their support as he remains in a coma following a skiing accident. The Formula One driver turns 45 today in his hospital bed in Grenoble after suffering critical head injuries in the French Alps on Sunday. The Ferrari team which he spent many years racing for announced it would hold a “silent…
Read More →Budget phone-maker Coolpad thinks it can sell more 4G smartphones than Samsung in China this year
Shenzhen-based budget smartphone maker Coolpad (HKG:2369) says it aims to sell more 4G handsets in China than Samsung (KRX:005935) in 2014, according to Tech 163. That’s a big claim for a company that …
Obesity Rates Balloon In Developing World
3 January 2014, 3:59 Obesity Rates Balloon In Developing World Tweet The number of overweight and obese people has reached almost one billion in the developing world – overtaking rates in industrialised countries, a report has found. The report by…
Read More →A tale of two leaders in China and Japan
China’s President Xi Jinping and Shinzo Abe of Japan are locked in a spiralling diplomatic standoff but their burgeoning rivalry contrasts with striking personal parallels between the two, analysts say. “These personality traits and similar historical background, I think they do matter because for both Xi Jinping and Abe, nationalism has been a potent force which they can exploit to consolidate their position,” said Willy Lam, a politics expert at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Abe and Xi both came to power in late 2012, Xi anointed as Communist Party general secretary and Abe elected Japan’s prime minister after an aborted first term five years earlier. Abe was voted in vowing to rejuvenate Japan’s long moribund economy after two so-called “lost decades”, amend its war-renouncing constitution and take a more positive view of Japan’s past with the slogan: “Take back Japan”.
Strong winter storm pushes into the Northeast
RODRIQUE NGOWI Associated Press= BOSTON (AP) — A storm expected to bring more than a foot of snow, stiff winds and punishing cold pushed into the Northeast on Thursday, extending Christmas break for some students while posing the first test for New York’s new mayor and perhaps the last challenge for Boston’s outgoing one. Some schools in New England and New York closed well ahead of the snow, while cities mobilized plows and salt spreaders, and state offices sent workers home early. Some major highways were ordered shut down overnight. U.S. airlines canceled more than 2,300 flights nationwide on Thursday in advance of the storm. The heavy weather began rolling in just a day after New York…
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