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At a near-empty Hyundai Motor (005380.KS) showroom in the Chinese mega city of Chongqing, the store manager is grumbling about his shortage of customers and a lack of bigger, cheaper SUV models popular in the world’s largest auto market. Even with discounting of as much as 25 percent, his dealership was selling barely a hundred vehicles a month, said the manager surnamed Li. A nearby Nissan (7201.T) dealership was selling about 400 vehicles a month, a store manager there said. “The sales are simply poor,” Li told Reuters. “Look at the Nissan store next door, they have tens of customers...

North Korea is conning the United States, building up secret, smaller missile bases even after publicly touting the dismantling of its main launch site, according to a new review of satellite images by a top think tank. Citing new satellite pictures, the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Beyond Parallel program identified what appears to be missile operating bases that have never been acknowledged by North Korean officials. CSIS' conclusions were not immediately independently confirmed. The report identified about 15 to 20 bases being operated by the Korean People’s Army's Strategic Force, based on information from officials in the government, defense...

The U.N.’s nuclear watchdog said Monday that Iran is abiding by the deal reached in 2015 with major powers that aimed at preventing Tehran from building atomic weapons in exchange for economic incentives. In a confidential quarterly report distributed to member states and reviewed by The Associated Press, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran has been abiding with key limitations set in the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. The issue has grown more complicated since the U.S. withdrew unilaterally in May from the deal and then re-imposed sanctions. Iran’s economy has been struggling ever since and...

Mpontsheng Secondary School in Gauteng is at the centre of a matric exam cheating scandal. According to a report by the City Press, the principal of the school walked into a geography matric exam and handed out answers to paper 1 to pupils. South Africa’s matric exams have come under severe scrutiny in recent years, with allegations of cheating affecting pockets of pupils and teachers. However, cheating is not a primary concern of education experts, but rather the low quality of the exams and the readiness to push pupils through. Another grave concern is the high dropout rate of pupils...

A long-serving MP and a former Member of the European Parliament are among names who have condemned the agreementA group of English Catholics, including a long-serving MP, have signed a joint letter expressing “profound dismay” at the Vatican’s provisional agreement with Beijing. Conservative MP Sir David Amess joined Irish former MEP Kathy Sinnott and Professor David Paton in criticising the Vatican for allowing the atheist Chinese government to have a role in choosing bishops at a time of increasing oppression. “The Chinese authorities have also continued to harass, detain, or hold indefinitely and incommunicado certain leading Catholic clergy, including Bishops...

WASHINGTON--Standing side by side, top U.S. officials urged their Chinese counterparts on Friday to halt militarization of the disputed South China Sea, drawing a rebuke from the Chinese for sending U.S. warships close to islands claimed by Beijing. Please see link for full article) http://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/AJ201811100016.html

Donald Trump’s top adviser on manufacturing lashed out at “globalist billionaires” for conducting “shuttle diplomacy” with China to try to pressure the White House into a deal with Beijing at the G20 summit in Argentina later this month. Warning that any deal risked having the “imprimatur of Goldman Sachs”, Peter Navarro, one of the most prominent China trade hawks within Mr Trump’s administration, called on Wall Street to “get out of the negotiations” and put their money in “Dayton, Ohio” instead. Mr Navarro said a “self-appointed group of Wall Street bankers and hedge fund managers” that were part of a...

The Trump administration’s top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, told Wall Street bankers and hedge-fund manager in a speech Friday to stay out of President Donald Trump’s affairs in regards to pushing for a trade deal with China. Please follow link for full article. https://www.google.com.vn/amp/s/moneyandmarkets.com/navarro-warns-wall-street-china-trade-talks/amp/

Xinhua's first English AI anchor makes debut at the World Internet Conference that opens in Wuzhen, China Wednesday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAfiATTQufk

University of Cape Town (UCT) vice-chancellor Mamokgethi Phakeng has congratulated a student on his honours project in which he ended his acknowledgements with the phrase‚ “ONE SETTLER‚ ONE BULLET!!” Phakeng tweeted on Tuesday evening: “Congratulations dear son on completing this paper! I would like to study it at some stage. In the meantime‚ let me be kliye [sic]: I am proud of you! Way more than you can imagine! Welldone! [sic]” Congratulations dear son on completing this paper! I would like to study it at some stage. In the meantime, let me be kliye: i am proud of you! Way...

China unveiled on Tuesday a replica of its first permanently crewed space station, which would replace the international community's orbiting laboratory and symbolises the country's major ambitions beyond Earth. The 17-metre (55-foot) core module was a star attraction at the biennial Airshow China in the southern coastal city of Zhuhai, the country's main aerospace industry exhibition. .... ....The International Space Station -- a collaboration between the United States, Russia, Canada, Europe and Japan -- has been in operation since 1998 but is due to be retired in 2024. China will then have the only space station in orbit, though it...

Washington's decision to cut off US supplies to a Chinese chip-maker spotlights mounting tensions over China's drive to be a global player in computer chips and the ways in which Taiwan companies are helping it get there. Shut out of major global semiconductor deals in recent years, China has been quietly strengthening cooperation with Taiwan chip firms by encouraging the transfer of chip-making expertise into the mainland. (Please see full article at the link)

A new armored vehicle designed to kill—well, everything—on the battlefield is ambitiously described by the manufacturer as the “New King of Ground Warfare.” Unveiled at the ongoing Zhuhai Air Show, the QN-506 is China’s version of the Russian 'Terminator' tank support vehicle. QN-506 is armed with a machine gun, grenades, a light cannon, two types of missiles, and even drones. One of the newer concepts in armored warfare is the idea of a tank support combat vehicle. The vehicle was developed by Russia after the end of the Cold War, when the Russian Army sustained heavy tank and armored vehicle...

Two priests belong to the ancient Diocese of Xiwanzi; the other two to that of Xuanhua. All four refuse to register in the Patriotic Association. For this they are subjected to indoctrination and isolation. In Shangcai (Henan), the cross of the bell tower and some spires are destroyed.Rome (AsiaNews) - Four priests from the underground community of the diocese of Zhangjiakou (Hebei) were taken away by police because they refused to join the Patriotic Association. The diocese of Zhangjiakou was formed by the government and includes two ancient dioceses, that of Xiwanzi and Xuanhua Two priests belong to the Diocese...

This story, which broke on Nov. 2, got mighty little attention from the national media. I wonder why: In 2013, hundreds of CIA officers — many working nonstop for weeks — scrambled to contain a disaster of global proportions: a compromise of the agency’s internet-based covert communications system used to interact with its informants in dark corners around the world. Teams of CIA experts worked feverishly to take down and reconfigure the websites secretly used for these communications; others managed operations to quickly spirit assets to safety and oversaw other forms of triage. “When this was going on, it was...

More than 70 foreign nationals working as spies for the CIA in Iran and China were systematically identified and slaughtered in the past decade, due to a ridiculously weak web-based system the CIA used to communicate with foreign assets it couldn’t reach directly. This according to a devastating November 2 report in Yahoo News written by journalists Zach Dorfman and Jenna McLaughlin (center-left, but generally trustworthy). Although the Iranian roll-up occurred in 2011, and the Chinese rout occurred from 2010 to 2012, the CIA did not remedy the root cause of the problem in its transient messaging scheme until 2013,...

China's J-10 fighter is now equipped with thrust vectoring controls that allow the jet to perform seemingly impossible aerial maneuvers. This long-rumored upgrade to a well-known jet fighter made its debut at the Zhuhai Air Show. The Chengdu J-10 “Vigorous Dragon” is a single-engine fighter developed for China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force (the Chinese Air Force). The J-10 falls in the same general category as the American F-16, and the two planes even share the same DNA, as the Chinese jet was built with Israeli assistance from Israel’s F-16-based Lavi fighter. However, in some technological respects, the China's plane...

The Taiwanese supplier to Apple must meet hiring, wage and investment targets by various dates to receive tax and other ‘performance-based’ benefits Foxconn Technology is considering bringing in personnel from China to help staff a large facility under construction in southern Wisconsin as it struggles to find engineers and other workers in one of the tightest labor markets in the U.S. The company, the Taiwanese supplier to Apple Inc., has been trying to tap Chinese engineers through internal transfers to supplement staffing for the Wisconsin plant, according to people familiar with the matter.

It's happening. The media are melting down and going into hysterics about Brazil's election of Jair Bolsonaro, AKA "Tropical Trump," to its presidency. Here's a starter tweet from a Washington Post contributor to show the pattern: This is a photo of Brazil’s new president Jair Bolsonaro’s two sons wearing IDF and Mossad shirts. Israel has become a symbol for authoritarianism around the world. Hear that? Israel, authoritarian, get it? What planet does this person live on? Bolsonaro is very pro-Israel, and Israelis are delighted by the support. Bolsonaro has vowed to move Brazil's embassy to Jerusalem in a bid to...