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P<> Explosion rocks China chemical plant 10 days after Tianjin catastropheDONGFU, SHANDONG, China, Aug. 22 (UPI) -- Less than two weeks after catastrophic explosions leveled an industrial district in Tianjin, China, a chemical plant less than 200 miles away was rocked by its own blast Saturday. The explosion at the plant, located in Dongfu, Shandong Province, occurred Saturday evening. Authorities said at least nine people were injured, but no one was killed.

Who could have seen this coming? Just a little over a week after a powerful explosion killed 114 and injured more than 700 in the Chinese port of Tianjin, it appears as though a second blast has occurred at a chemical warehouse, this time in China's eastern Shandong province. A residential area is reportedly located just 1 km away.

The Facts US troops have been mobilized in South Korea after Kim Jong-un ordered his military generals to ready for a state of war. US troops' vehicles were mobilized in the South Korean town of Paju, bordering North Korea. North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un ordered military generals to ready for a state of war from 5:00 p.m. local time Friday. By 4:30 PM local time, the North Korean leader said preparations were complete, declaring a "quasi-state of war." South Korean news agency Yonhap says satellite imagery shows North Korea moving missiles in preparation for possible launch. South Korea's defense ministry...

The Internal Revenue Service must answer in court for a data breach in which hackers gained access to personal identifying data belonging to at least 330,000 people. Two Texas women sued the agency Thursday in Washington, complaining that "the U.S. government cannot be relied upon to keep the personal data of its citizens safe." The women, Becky Welborn of Dripping Springs and Wendy Windrich of Conroe, are seeking to represent anyone whose information was stolen after using the IRS "Get Transcript" service that allow taxpayers to get information on their own filings. They're also asking for unspecified money damages for...

Two leading U.S. senators are calling on the Obama administration to release secret letters to foreign governments assuring them that they will not be legally penalized for doing business with the Iranian government, according to a copy of a letter sent Wednesday to the State Department and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. Sens. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) and Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) disclosed in the letter to the State Department that U.S. lawmakers have been shown copies of several letters sent by the Obama administration to the Chinese, German, French, and British governments assuring them that companies doing business

A North Korean military official says a meeting of senior party and defense officials led by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met Thursday night and "reviewed and approved the final attack operation." He gave no details on what kind of military retaliation North Korea would see as appropriate punishment for South Korea's shelling of its territory on Thursday. Kim Yong Chol, director of the general reconnaissance bureau of the North Korean army, on Friday denied South Korean allegations that Pyongyang has been raising tensions on the peninsula. He denied the North fired anything across the Demilitarized Zone and says...

China stocks crash 11% in a week By Charles Riley China's beleaguered stock market endured yet another sell off on Friday, shedding 4% to wipe away the remaining gains from a dramatic market rescue launched by Beijing in early July. The benchmark Shanghai Composite closed just north of 3,500 points, a level that many analysts believe Beijing will try to defend at all costs. Even with a late rush of buying, the index closed down more than 11% for the week.

The presidential administration that vowed to be the most transparent since the baptism of Nkuwu Nzinga has once again demonstrated that such vows mean nothing to it. In addition to the secretive manner in which Secretary of State John Kerry conducted negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran over its nuclear program — in itself secretive — there was also the matter of secret “side deals” between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency. And now, additional side deals, this time between President Barack Obama and the leaders of foreign governments, have also come to light. Republican Sens. Marco Rubio...

The manufacturer of Oreo cookies recently announced plans to move production of Oreos from Chicago to Mexico, resulting in a loss of 600 U.S. jobs.This should be a wake-up call to defenders of the U.S. sugar program and other job-destroying trade barriers.The leading ingredient in Oreos is sugar, and U.S. trade barriers currently require Americans to pay twice the average world prices for sugar.Sugar-using industries now have a big incentive to relocate from the United States to countries where access to their primary ingredient is not restricted.If the government wants people making Oreo cookies and similar products to keep their...

U.S. stocks were seeing a broad-based rout Thursday, led by a selloff in media, technology, consumer and financial stocks as investors wrestled with worries about a slowdown in global growth. “There is heightened uncertainty that began with yuan devaluation last week, while overall China’s growth is slowing father than thought. This is weighing on confidence,” said Randy Frederick, managing director of trading & derivatives at Schwab Center for Financial Research. The nervousness on Wall Street was apparent from a jump in the CBOE Volatility index VIX, +16.98% which has gained more than 35% to 17.65 over the past three trading...

Some residents and journalists near the blast site in Tianjin experienced skin burns as rain hit the Binhai New Area on Tuesday. Amid fears the rain could spark toxic reactions with chemicals at the site - in particular with hundreds of tonnes of sodium cyanide - an official urged the public to "stay far away". As the rain progressed, an unusual white foam emerged on roads near the blast site. A journalist for Caixin reported feeling burns on the lips and arms after being exposed to the rain.

David Scutt, Business Insider AustraliaAugust 20,2015Deflationary pressures across Asia are building, reaching a fresh six-year low in July. There is no better demonstration of this than examining recent movements in producer price inflation. In annualised terms, they’ve fallen for 41 consecutive months in China. South Korea, the Philippines, Hong Kong and Singapore have all seen prices fall for more than 30 months. Indonesia, at 4.3%, is one of the few nations to have recorded an compared to a year earlier.#(snip)

Difficult to hold out hope for Zimbabwe elephants and lions being shipped like so much coal off to China In faraway Zimbabwe, when the veterinaries had to come to put down the family pets, because of widespread poverty, few outside the country noticed. The Western World never heard from animal rights activists until an American big game hunter dentist took down Cecil, the Lion, who now has his own Facebook page. The screams of animal rights activists went up worldwide. In the aftermath of Cecil the Lion, we learn of reports that staff at Hwange National Park have been suddenly...

A great deal of Donald Trump’s silly and illiterate trade talk presupposes the gutting or repeal of NAFTA, the trade accord between the United States, Canada, and Mexico that went into effect in 1994, with his dreams of punitive sanctions and blockades. Indeed, NAFTA is a favorite whipping boy for populists Left and Right, a reminder that populist conservatives have much more in common with populist progressives such as Senator Bernie Sanders than they do with the political tendency that connects Adam Smith to F. A. Hayek and Ronald Reagan. Trump fancies himself an ace negotiator, a skill that he...

Bangkok bomb: Thai authorities suspect Uighur link to Erawan shrine attack By Vasudevan Sridharan | International Business Times – 4 hours ago. Thai authorities are investigating whether Uighur militants from far-western China staged the deadly bombing in the Erawan shrine in Bangkok which killed 22 people. Amid the ongoing manhunt for the suspect who left his backpack, police said they were not ruling out any possibility including deported dozens of Uighurs to China sparking widespread criticism. "Police are not ruling out anything including (Thai) politics and the conflict of ethnic Uighurs who, before this, Thailand sent back to China," National...

<p>Concerns about the health of China’s economy kept pressure on Asian markets and commodities Wednesday, a day after stocks in Shanghai tumbled more than 6%.</p> <p>The Shanghai Composite Index opened 2.7% lower at 3646.80 and the smaller Shenzhen Composite fell 3.1% to 2107.65.</p>

Detroit — Most Buick vehicles sold in the United States after 2016 could be imported from China and Europe, according to two sources familiar with parent General Motors Co’s plans. Only two of Buick’s future US models, replacements for the mid-size LaCrosse sedan and the large Enclave crossover, are expected to be built in North America, according to the sources, who did not want to be identified because their companies work with GM. (Snip) Buick is planning to shift production of the compact Verano sedan from Michigan to China in late 2016, the sources said. Production of the

First rainfall since Tianjin explosion leaves city covered in mysterious white foam The first rainfall to wash over Tianjin since a series of blasts struck a warehouse in the Binhai district last week has sparked a new wave of concern as an unidentified white foam has appeared on the streets. Some who made contact with it are reporting a burning sensation on their face and lips, while others are reporting a stinging sensation on their arms. Some have said they experienced an itchy sensation, according to a NetEase News report.

Automation poses an insurmountable obstacle to China's full employment and spells the end of Corporate America's vast skimming operation based on low wages and zero-regulatory costs in China.The general decline in the quality of tools and consumer goods predates the emergence of China as the workshop of the world, but the decline has gathered momentum with China's dominance of manufacturing. Young people have little to no experience of tools and consumer goods that function for decades; today, everything that isn't disposable is expected to fail/break within a few years. Whatever doesn't break must be upgraded or tossed as uncool. This...

Mainland markets fall China's Shanghai Composite index accelerated the pace of decline in the afternoon session, closing down 6.12 percent at its lowest level since August 7, as concerns over the yuan eclipsed data which showed monthly home prices up for a third straight month in July, indicating that country's all-important property sector may be finally bottoming. Prior to the market open, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) set the midpoint rate at 6.3966 per dollar, firmer than the previous fix of 6.3969. However, the yuan fell against the greenback, slipping modestly to last change hands at 6.4011. Among the...