Beijing raised its four-tiered smog alert system to ‘orange’ for the first time on Friday as heavy smog was forecast to roll into the city for the next three days. Officials have urged people to stay indoors and use public transport. When Beijing’s Air Quality Index (AQI) readings went above 300 micrograms per cubic meter on Friday – more than ten times the level considered safe by... 

Over the last decade, America has quietly expanded its military presence throughout Africa in an attempt to counter Chinese and other emerging nations’ influence, while consolidating control over critical strategic resources and trade routes. The United States, like its allies Britain and France, has long maintained influence and indirect control in Africa through financial institutions such as... 

Chinese authorities have been angered over the US President Barack Obama’s recent meeting with the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. The Chinese Foreign Ministry summoned the US charge d’affaires to deliver a formal complaint over the move. “China expresses strong indignation and firm opposition,” media outlets quoted Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui as saying. President... 

Tokyo suggested that it would allow the US to bring nuclear weapons into Japanese territory in the event of a serious threat to its security. In a briefing with lawmakers, Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida outlined conditions that would lead Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government to make exceptions to Japan’s longstanding posture against possessing, producing, or allowing nuclear weapons... 

Asia Weekly, a Hong Kong-based news outlet, is reporting that Japan is secretly developing a nuclear weapons program in response to increasing hostilities with China over the East China Sea dispute. According to the report, paraphrased by the Want China Times, “With the capability to build at least 2,000 nuclear warheads, Japan has recently demanded the United States return 300 kilograms of plutonium.... 

Japan is now considering future weapon transfers to other Asian countries as it builds alliances for a potential war with China. Earlier today in Okinawa, Japanese officials met with representatives from the 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to expand technological and defensive cooperation between the countries. Although Japan and ASEAN discussed joint cooperation in... 

Fishing boats are seen berthed at Dalijia fishing port in Dalian, northeast China’s Liaoning Province. China is set to construct the world’s longest underwater tunnel, which will connect two of its northern port cities in an earthquake-prone region, an expert involved in the project says. Under the USD36 billion project, a 123-kilometre tunnel will be built as a shortcut between Dalian... 

The world’s first monkeys with genes modified through a DNA engineering method known as Crispr/Cas9 were born in a lab. The scientific breakthrough by Chinese researchers could become a cornerstone for research and prevention of human genetic disorders. Researchers at Nanjing Medical University and Yunnan Key Laboratory of Primate Biomedical Research in Kunming in China have created two genetically... 

US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has warned that China and Russia are challenging the United States as they are investing in their military capabilities. “Most persistent and pressing security challenges to Europe and the United States are global,” Hagel said during the Munich Security Conference, the most important transatlantic security gathering, on Saturday. “Nations such as China and... 

What do you get when you cross a fish with an elephant? A patent. But transgenic genetic modification is no joke. It has the potential to create new diseases that can jump species. A new study has found a pathogenic virus that has jumped from genetic engineers’ favorite test-bed, tobacco, to agriculture’s most important helper, honeybees. Honeybees are vitally important to our food supply and... 

Approximately 2,300 years ago the ancient Chinese wrote the world’s oldest decimal multiplication table on bamboo sticks. According to experts, it was a very effective calculator that let one do the calculations not only with integers but also fractions. No country in the world had similar calculators at that time. Five years ago, Beijing Tsinghua University received a gift of nearly two and... 

Pollutants from China’s manufacturing industry are traveling across the Pacific Ocean, contributing to smog in the United States, according to a new study. Chinese power plants and factories produce enough dirty emissions that pollutants can make it across the Pacific in around six days, exacerbating smog levels on the US West Coast, according to a scientific study published Monday in the Proceedings... 

PLA source says number of troops involved is unusually rare. In what PLA sources are describing as an unusually high figure, China has mobilized 100,000 troops to take part in a border exercise as part of preparations for a Korean Peninsula crisis. “The drill is a normal military exercise to train soldiers to fight in winter and long-range conditions, according to national state broadcaster China... 

Highways were closed in Beijing as the Chinese capital was covered by thick smog engulfing skyscrapers. Pollution readings reached threatening levels of more than two dozen times the level considered safe. The spike in air pollution began Wednesday afternoon and continued overnight, Xinhua reported, citing Beijing’s Municipal Environment Protection Department. It is expected to last until Friday... 

An “urgent” report issued today to the General Staff from the highly secretive Deputy Defense Minister General Pavel Popov is warning that war can be expected to erupt between the Pacific Powers of the United States, Peoples Republic of China and the State of Japan “within weeks” due to a power struggle currently “exploding” within the Communist Party of China (CPC). According to this...