China animal rights groups protest seal meat deal (AFP)

URGENT: Windows broken at Japanese Embassy facility in Beijing+
BEIJING, Jan. 14 (AP) - (Kyodo)—The Japanese Embassy in Beijing said Friday that two windows were broken at the embassy's public Diplomacy center. The attack is possibly related to Friday being the date of commemorating the integration of the Senkaku Islands into Japanese territory. The islands are claimed by China. ...

China's Nuclear Energy Ambitions: Big, Bold, and Unstoppable
China announced via its state-run media yesterday that more Nuclear Power plants will be built during the nation's next Five Year Plan, from 2011-2015. It's not exactly new news, per se, as it's been well known that China's Nuclear Power sector has been expanding for some time in concert with the nation's goal to generate 15% of its power by non-fossil energy by 2020. China has 13 nuclear reactors in operation today, and another 25 are under construction. By 2015, China's investment in nuclear p...

Animal rights extremists sentenced for attacks on Barclays due to links to testing laboratory
The mother of an "idealistic" young Animal Rights Extremist sentenced for her part in a series of attacks on branches of Barclays bank due to its links to a testing laboratory yesterday said the family were desperate to put her acts behind them...

Plant emission limit rise likely
The Environment Agency says it is likely to ease emissions limits at a £400m Biomass plant in Port Talbot. Prenergy wants to make the changes due to the design of the wood burning power station but says it will still meet the highest environmental standards. The agency said it was confident Air Quality would not be compromised. The company said changes were well within EU limits but opponents said "fundamental objections" over risks to Air Quality and health remained. Residents an...

SOKO Fitness & Spa Group Reports Second Quarter Fiscal 2011 Financial Results
SOKO increased total fitness club members 54% year-over-year and 11% sequentially to approximately 22,900 and beauty salon and spa clients 27% year-over-year and 11% sequentially to approximately 25,320. Cash and cash equivalents was $15.0 million as of November 30, 2010, a decrease of $9.5 million over August 31, 2010.  The sequential decrease in cash and cash equivalents was related to increased investment in new facility openings, consistent with SOKO's growth strategy. SOKO has narrowed...

Gates eases up on Okinawa base relocation
TOKYO, Jan. 14 (UPI) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Washington remains committed to relocating the U.S. Military Okinawa Air Base but the move must be strategically appropriate for the United States. "We hope to move forward with the relocation of U.S. forces in Okinawa in ways that are more appropriate to our strategic posture while reducing the impact on the communities nearby," Gates said. Gates, who was in Japan after spending four days in China, said despite tensions over the F...

Gates warns of civil-military disconnect in China
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said after a trip to Beijing that China's revelation of a stealth jet's flight test pointed to a "disconnect" between its Military and civilian leaders. Gates was speaking in Japan on Friday, during a week-long Asia tour focused on the threat posed by nuclear-armed North Korea and the increasing Military assertiveness in the region of Pyongyang's only major ally China. The Pentagon chief stressed that China's President Hu Jintao, whom he met on Tuesday, was "in ...

Gates warns of civil-military disconnect in China
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said after a trip to Beijing that China's revelation of a stealth jet's flight test pointed to a "disconnect" between its Military and civilian leaders. Gates was speaking in Japan on Friday, during a week-long Asia tour focused on the threat posed by nuclear-armed North Korea and the increasing Military assertiveness in the region of Pyongyang's only major ally China. The Pentagon chief stressed that China's President Hu Jintao, whom he met on Tuesday, was "i...

China sets goals to reduce emissions of pollutants
BEIJING (AP) — China said Friday it would cut emissions this year by rejecting construction projects that pollute too much and developing new technologies that curb Greenhouse Gases. The Ministry of Environmental Protection set a target to cut emissions of major pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, ammonia nitrogen and nitrogen oxide by 1.5 percent in 2011 compared to last year, a report on the ministry’s website said. China is the world’s largest Polluter, with energy demands gr...

U.S. raises China military, trade worry before Hu visit
Tokyo (Reuters) - U.S. Armed Forces in the Pacific are essential to restraining a Chinese Military that might otherwise be more belligerent, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Friday. Gates was speaking in Japan just days before China's president visits the United States, when commercial differences will also be in focus. President Barack Obama hosts China's President Hu Jintao for a state visit on January 19. U.S. officials say Obama will raise big geopolitical problems such as Iran a...

China says FX policy based on its national interests
BEIJING (Reuters) - China's yuan Exchange Rate policy is based on its own national interests, a senior Chinese diplomat said on Friday, days before a summit with U.S. President Barack Obama. Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai made those... Should you open an FDIC-insured yuan Bank Account? Beijing (Reuters) - China's yuan Exchange Rate policy is based on its own national interests, a senior Chinese diplomat said on Friday, days before a summit with U.S. President Barack Obama. Chinese V...

China raises banks' required reserves again
The 50-basis-point increase, effective January 20, will raise the reserve requirement ratio for China's biggest banks to a record high of 19.5 percent. By forcing banks to lock up more of their cash with the Central Bank, Beijing hopes to drain The Economy of excess money and tame rising prices, which it worries may stir social unrest. The People's Bank of China announced the decision in a terse statement published on its website. Abundant cash is seen as the main driver of China's Inflation, w...

China sets goals to reduce emissions of pollutants
China said Friday it would cut emissions this year by rejecting construction projects that pollute too much and developing new technologies that curb Greenhouse Gases. The Ministry of Environmental Protection set a target to cut emissions of major pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, ammonia nitrogen and nitrogen oxide by 1.5 percent in 2011 compared to last year, a report on the ministry's website said. China is the world's largest Polluter, with energy demands growing sharply every year. The con...

China Goes Shopping: How Beijing Plans to Turn the Chinese into Consumers
Exports fueled the initial stages of China's ongoing economic boom. Now, however, the government in Beijing is placing a greater emphasis on domestic consumption. The Chinese Middle Class, it would seem, are more than happy to toe the line. The crowds jostle as they push forward. Men in Black uniforms survey the scene as they stand guard. A Communist Party convention? Hardly. Rather, it is the official opening of the first Gap store on Chinese soil. ...

Defense Secretary Gates’ Miserable Mission to China
Defense secretary Bob Gates was visiting China this week for the first time in SIX YEARS, and he is surprised that the Chinese are rolling out  a fighter jet  that wasn’t expected until 2020??? If you are clueless about something as important as this, Bob, what ELSE don’t you know?  Amateur video of the J-20 Stealth Fighter “just happened” to go wildly-viral all over the Internet just as Gates was arriving in China. The idea that Gates or anyone from t...

China says FX policy based on its national interests
Beijing | Fri Jan 14, 2011 1:52am EST Beijing (Reuters) - China's yuan Exchange Rate policy is based on its own national interests, a senior Chinese diplomat said on Friday, days before a summit with U.S. President Barack Obama. Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai made those comments in Beijing ahead of Hu's state visit from next Tuesday to Friday, including a summit with President Obama on Wednesday. Cui was speaking at a forum hosted by the Foreign Ministry. Obama is likely to raise U...

China raises banks' required reserves again
Beijing | Fri Jan 14, 2011 5:24am EST Beijing (Reuters) - China's Central Bank raised lenders' required reserves on Friday for the fourth time in just over two months to make good on its vow that Inflation fighting will be a top priority for the year. The 50-basis-point increase, effective January 20, will raise the reserve requirement ratio for China's biggest banks to a record high of 19.5 percent. By forcing banks to lock up more of their cash with the central bank, Beijing hopes to drain ...

Irans nuke tour without major powers, key allies
VIENNA (AP) — Diplomats say a weekend tour of Iran’s nuclear sites appears set to go ahead without Russia, China, the European Union or key allies Turkey and Brazil. Their absence would blunt Tehran’s attempts to gain support from major powers ahead of crucial talks next week in Istanbul on its atomic activities. Iranian Envoy Ali Asghar Soltanieh said Friday that representatives of Arab, nonaligned and Developing Countries had accepted invitations to visit Tehran’s centr...

Hong Kong's legislature vetoes Asian Games bid+
HONG KONG, Jan. 14 (AP) - (Kyodo)—Hong Kong's legislature on Friday voted down the government's bid to host the Asian Games in 2023. Legislators attending the finance committee meeting voted 40 to 14 against the government's proposal to apply for HK$6 billion ($771 million) to host the game. The government had concluded in December, after conducting a public consultation, to go ahead with the bid despite weak public support. The proposed cost was toned down from originally sought HK$13.7...

Linda Constant: Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei is Still Smiling
As news of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei's studio demolition, courtesy of Shanghai city authorities, circles the globe and stirs indignation throughout various onlookers (see a previous post from November which prompted a brief Twitter exchange between myself and @aiww), what is important now is to note the artist's own reaction to the situation at hand: "It all goes down so fast. There's no reason to stay. Everything is in the past. And we have to look forward," he told The New Yorker yesterday. ...

Tunisian president will not seek re-election
The Tunisian president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, has said he will not seek re-election in 2014. Photograph: AP Tunisia's president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, said tonight that he would not seek re-election in 2014 in an attempt to calm the growing violence that has swept the country for weeks. In a nationally televised address, Ben Ali, who has been the head of state for more than 23 years, said he would not run for presidency again when his term expired. He also said that he would not change...

Russian Thunderclouds
A series of violent street clashes across Russia in the past few weeks may be mere thunderclouds destined to dissipate, but one leading historian, Anatoly Bernshtein, wonders in print this week whether something more grim is happening to his country. I think he has a point. "It's like modifications in the weather -- I can feel it," he writes in a recent edition of the newspaper Ezhednevny Zhurnal. "Change is hanging in the air." Bernshtein cites three major clashes with authorities in the month ...

Father of modern Chinese navy Liu Huaqing dies
BEIJING - Chinese state media say Liu Huaqing, considered the father of the modern Chinese Navy, has died at the age of 95. State broadcaster CCTV says Liu died Friday morning of an undisclosed illness. Liu commanded the Chinese navy from 1982 to 1988. He is credited with revitalizing a coastal patrol force and setting it on course to becoming the powerful blue water navy it is now. Liu joined the Communist Party in 1935 and served with the People's Liberation Army throughout the struggle ...

Marshall Auerback: Chinese Trade Policy Must Focus on Social Consequences
By Marshall Auerback, a portfolio Strategist and Hedge Fund manager; first posted at New Deal 2.0 Focusing on currency isn’t going to cut it for America’s workers. You have to have a sense of irony to watch the latest maneuvers on trade with China. Obama continues to turn his administration into “Clinton Mark III”. (Enter Gene Sperling and Jacob Lew, following the revolving door departures of Peter Orszag and Larry Summers). The president continues to turn to many of the very folk

Is the U.S. Becoming a Provocateur in the Asian Community?
The Unites States has been behaving in a strangely unexpected way of late, moving we surmise unintentionally to bring discord to areas that are in harmony. The Unites States encourages Japan, dedicated to non-violence, and a strictly defensive Military to take a more affirmative stance toward North Korea, and in response to “assertiveness” from China. The U.S. further is encouraging Japan to join with the United States in Military exercises. This American position has, we concede, ...