by Stephen Chen in South China Morning Post, April 23, at 11:45pm A major international publisher has retracted 107 research papers by Chinese authors after learning about irregularities in their peer review process. The Springer Nature publishing company said on Thursday the papers were published in the journal Tumor Biology between 2012 and last year. The authors supplied the journal’s editors with made-up contact information of third-party reviewers. “In order to clean up our scientific…
Posts published in April 2017
Reuters report in in South China Morning Post, Apr 24, 2017 Global security companies and their smaller Chinese rivals are jostling for business along Beijing’s modern-day “Silk Road”, the grandiose plan for land and sea routes connecting the world’s second largest economy with the rest of Asia and beyond. Representing investments of hundreds of billions of dollars, the pet project of Chinese President Xi Jinping is seen boosting economic growth at home, and as positive…
by Laura Zhou in South China Morning Post, April 24, 2017 Near constant patrols by China’s coastguard at Luconia Shoals off the coast of Malaysia are a signal from Beijing that it plans to maintain a maritime presence within its contested claim to most of the South China Sea, analysts say. Three different Chinese vessels were patrolling regularly in the first two months of this year near the shoals, some 1,600km from China but only…
by Minnie Chan in South China Morning Post, Apr 24, 2017 Army corps in China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) are likely to have their unit numbers changed for the first time in their history as part of President Xi Jinping’s efforts to reshape the world’s biggest army, military sources said. “Serial numbers for the 13 army corps are likely restart from 71 and end at 83,” a senior retired army officer in Beijing told the…
by Minnie Chan in South China Morning Post, Apr 24, 2017 China was making final preparations to launch its first domestically built aircraft carrier as itmarked the 68th anniversary of the founding of the PLA Navy on Sunday. The scaffolding around the ship, temporarily named the Type 001A, was removed and the deck was cleared, Shanghai-based news portal thepaper.cn reported, suggesting that the launch date was getting close. However, experts said tidal conditions yesterday were…
by TARIQ NAQASH in Dawn, April 24th, 2017 MUZAFFARABAD: The AJK government is being criticised for its ‘generosity’, after the region’s IGP, Bashir Ahmed Memon, declined a post-retirement package. On March 28, the AJK Services and General Administration Department clandestinely issued a notification to supplement the facilities admissible to the chief secretaries under an earlier notification issued on June 15, 2006. Through the June 15, 2006, notification, which was renewed on June 4, 2011, the…
Report in The Daily Star online, Apr 22, 2017 at 10.36am Police today recovered at least 17 large plastic containers of hydrogen peroxide, a chemical used to make bombs, from the suspected Neo JMB militant hideout in Jhenidah Sadar upazila. The chemical containers were seen brought out from a house at Porahati village by rickshaw-vans, our Jhenidah correspondent reports quoting Deputy Inspector General of Khulna range Didar Ahmed. The recovery was made after members of…
by Zhuang Pinghui in South China Morning Post, Apr 22, 2017 Researchers have warned about a growing wealth gap in rural areas, posing further challenges as Beijing makes poverty alleviation a top priority. An annual report by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) found that although the wealth gap between different regions is narrowing, inequality between different income groups is expanding. The annual disposable income for rural residents averaged 12,363 yuan (US$1,797) last year,…
Xinhua report in the Global Times China announced Tuesday a military reshuffle with 84 corps-level units newly adjusted or established, a move hailed by President Xi Jinping as another major step in strengthening the country’s armed forces. Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), made the remarks while meeting chief military officers Tuesday in Beijing. Decided by the CPC…
Reuters report in South China Morning Post, April 22, 2017, at 6:20am A Chinese citizen pleaded guilty on Friday to charges of trying to illegally export to China high-grade carbon fibre used primarily in aerospace and military applications, the US Justice Department said in a statement. Fuyi Sun, 53, who pleaded guilty before US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in New York federal court, admitted he tried to procure the carbon fibre for the Chinese military,…
By RAHMATULLAH NABIL in The New York Times April 21, 2017 The writer served as the head of Afghanistan’s national directorate of security from 2010 to 2012 and from 2013 to 2015.KABUL, Afghanistan — Pakistan is not just one of nine countries with nuclear weapons, it is also a hotbed of global jihadism, where the military and the intelligence services use terrorist networks to advance their regional goals. And even as Pakistani officials proclaim that…