US National Security Advisor John Bolton in a speech unveiled the US strategy to counter Chinese and Russian influence in Africa. He accused Moscow and Beijing of deliberately and aggressively targeting their investments in the region to gain a competitive advantage over the US.

The American official claimed that China was using bribes, opaque agreements and the strategic use of debt to hold states in Africa captive to Beijing's wishes and demands. In addition, Bolton announced a new program, "Prosper Africa", to support American investment across the continent and provide alternatives to Chinese projects.

Radio Sputnik has discussed this new plan with Ian Taylor, a professor in International Relations and African Political Economy at the School of International Relations at the University of St. Andrews in Fife, Scotland.

Concerns prompt ‘review’ of Shanghai agreement within Israel’s inner security cabinet, sources say.

U.S. President Donald Trump is facing pushback for saying on Tuesday that he might intervene in a legal case involving the chief financial official of Chinese telco giant Huawei Technologies — if such a move would help Washington secure a trade deal with Beijing.

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland on Wednesday warned the U.S. not to politicize extradition cases, saying that the legal process should not be hijacked for political purposes.

“Our extradition partners should not seek to politicize the extradition process or use it for ends other than the pursuit of justice and following the rule of law,” she said when asked about Trump’s interview with Reuters where he reportedly said he would intervene in the case if it helped secure a trade deal with Beijing.

The world order has already changed. China has a larger and more powerful industrial and manufacturing based economy than the US, and China’s potential domestic consumer market is four times larger than that of the US. As economies are consumer based, China’s potential is an economy four times larger than that of the US.

Russia has a far more capable military with weapon systems unmatched by the US. The US is drowning in debt, and the illegal and irresponsible sanctions that Washington tries to impose on others are driving the world’s largest countries away from the use of the US dollar as world reserve currency and away from Western clearance systems such as SWIFT. The United States already has one foot in the grave. Any country sufficiently stupid to ally with the US is allied with a dead man walking.

The Chinese Institute of High Energy Physics has unveiled the project of a 100-kilometer particle accelerator that could be an attempt to lead the field of particle physics.

Earlier, the Chinese tried to build a 50-kilometer accelerator, however, eventually designing a 100-kilometer ring.

The underground facility will be in a Higgs boson factory, called “particle of God.” The Chinese main objective is to demonstrate the existence of new physics and solve the mystery of dark matter.

US President Donald Trump said that China wants to conclude a major and comprehensive deal with the United States, and the signing of the agreement may occur quite soon, Trump wrote today on Twitter.

Today, it was announced that China will freeze the introduction of additional customs tariffs on imports of cars and components from the United States for 90 days, according to a statement by the relevant committee at the State Council of China.

“From January 1 to March 31, 2019, the increase in duties for goods 116 and 67 will be suspended by 25 and 5%, respectively,” the TASS news agency reported on Friday, December 14.

With US markets going into full-fledged convulsions thanks to disheartening economic data out of China, a looming government shutdown, renewed fears about a "no deal" Brexit and Dow component JNJ's worst day in 16 years, strategists can add one more disconcerting development to their list of woes. Citing a "top secret" intelligence report, NBC News said Friday that the US suspects that North Korea is still evading US sanctions by secretly transferring oil at sea.

But do not be deceived by what you see. All this time Canada actually dutifully followed the US lead and even copied some of its trendiest policies. Be it following Russophobic hysteria or making billions worth of deals with some Middle Eastern autocrats, Canada was here to march in lockstep with its powerful neighbor. Its response to the alleged murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of Washington’s key Middle Eastern ally – the Saudis – was also conspicuously reserved, particularly for a nation that portrays itself as a fervent champion of human rights.

Now China got a taste of Ottawa’s imitation game, as Canada seemingly decided to get involved into the unfolding economic ‘Cold War’ between Washington and Beijing. Last week Canadian authorities arrested Meng Wanzhou – the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei’s chief financial officer and the daughter of the company’s founder, Ren Zhengfei – provoking a furious reaction from Beijing.

U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton, unveiling President Donald Trump’s Africa strategy on Thursday, accused Russia and China of “predatory practices” that interfere with American military operations on the continent and pose a significant threat to America’s homeland security interests.

China is using its economic clout in Africa to promote a “new international order” and encourage countries to adopt its communist ideology, experts told lawmakers on Wednesday.

While testifying before the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, Judd Devermont, the director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think-tank, acknowledged that not all Chinese activities in Africa are anti-ethical to U.S. goals, noting that “some are neutral or complementary to U.S. objectives and may actually benefit American interests.”

Nevertheless, some of the witnesses noted that communist China is actively pursuing a new Beijing-led order on the continent.

The concept of Greater Eurasia has been discussed at the highest levels of Russian academia and policy-making for some time. This week the policy was presented at the Council of Ministers and looks set to be enshrined, without fanfare, as the main guideline of Russian foreign policy for the foreseeable future.

President Putin is unconditionally engaged to make it a success. Already at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum in 2016, Putin referred to an emerging “Eurasian partnership”.

A factory worker was skewered with ten huge steel spikes after a rogue robot malfunctioned and impaled the man.

The incident occurred in China and the man managed to survive after the robot's arm fell onto him and plunged the spikes into his chest and arm.

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ON THURSDAY ANNOUNCED A SHARP REFOCUS OF ITS AFRICA STRATEGY TO COUNTER WHAT IT CALLED THE “PREDATORY” PRACTICES OF CHINA AND RUSSIA, WHICH ARE “DELIBERATELY AND AGGRESSIVELY TARGETING THEIR INVESTMENTS IN THE REGION TO GAIN A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE.”

National security adviser John Bolton laid out the new strategy in remarks at the Heritage Foundation, saying the U.S. will now choose its African partners more carefully. He took special aim at China, accusing it of wielding “bribes, opaque agreements, and the strategic use of debt to hold states in Africa captive to Beijing’s wishes and demands.”

The Chicago-based planemaker will inaugurate its completion and delivery center in Zhoushan, 90 miles southeast of Shanghai, on Saturday, after more than a year of construction. The facility marks a rare industrial foray outside of the U.S. for Boeing and a joint venture with state-owned plane maker Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China Ltd.

While the plant was sent in motion before U.S. President Donald Trump was elected, the ribbon-cutting risks being overshadowed by his tit-for-tat on duties with China on products ranging from cars, machinery to pork and soybeans.

About one of every four jets that Boeing builds is bound for China, while the country’s airlines are the biggest buyers of the 737, the manufacturer’s largest source of profit. China is expected to need about 7,700 commercial planes over the next two decades to connect an increasingly mobile middle class. That represents a $1 trillion market opportunity for Boeing, Airbus SE and homegrown rivals like Comac.

China is planning an underwater sea base, a latter-day "Atlantis" that runs on artificial intelligence that could aid Beijing in defense operations in the South China Sea, according to a recent press report.

The South China Morning Post reported Monday China is building the center that could become the "first artificial intelligence colony on Earth."

The project is named after the ancient Greek underworld of Hades and was launched at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.

Chinese President Xi Jinping may be behind the project. In April, during a visit to a deep-sea research institute at Sanya, Hainan Province, Xi told scientists to do something never done before

The dollar index has been rising since Trump began his war on trade. But right now it’s at the same 97 index level as when Trump was elected. Recall that Trump’s administration pushed down starting in 2017 to stimulate exports and attempt to cut the trade deficit. The dollar fell from 97 to 88. Gold ran from $1125 to as high as $1360 – a key technical breakout level – by late April 2018. Something had to be done to keep gold from moving higher…Trump started his Trade War in March, which pushed the dollar higher. Gold began tank. Ironically, the trade deficit one again began to balloon.

If Trump wants to “win” the trade war, he needs to push the dollar a lot lower. This in turn will send the price of gold soaring. This means that the western Central Banks/BIS will have to live with a rising price gold, something I’m not sure they’re prepared to do. This could set up an interesting behind-the-scenes clash between Trump and the western banking elitists.

The Lindsey Group] has always been skeptical of conspiracy theories that involve the government; generally, it is too incompetent to pull one off. Moreover, the rigidity of the institutional structure requires things must be done in certain ways that often signal what’s up. The available facts surrounding the detention of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou sends plenty of signals, some of which confirm the prevailing narrative, some of which suggest there is more to it. Start with: who knew what when?

Two months ago, Albert Edwards first suggested that investors are focusing on the wrong catalyst for the next crash, which according to the grumpy SocGen strategist would emerge out of China, contending that as Trump exerts mounting pressure on the Chinese economy via tariffs, "the worry is that a Chinese policy response will send the global markets into a tailspin, just as the August 2015 devaluation did."

Today, in his latest note, Edwards doubles down on his assertion that a China hard-landing may be "the grey rhino that investors are ignoring" even as he once again admits that "naysayers, such as I, have consistently been proved wrong about the ability of China’s policymakers to successfully navigate choppy waters without capsizing the economic ship. And it is wholly natural that investors, having been proved overly bearish about the economy in the past, have given up worrying about a Chinese hard landing – but now that ship looks to be taking on water once again."

Despite numerous pitfalls and occasional arrests, the truce between Trump and Xi appears to be bearing fruit, or rather vegetables.

According to Reuters, Chinese state-owned companies bought at least 500,000 tonnes of U.S. soybeans on Wednesday in the first major purchases since Trump and Xi met in early December and cobbled together a ceasefire in the trade war between the US and China.

Citing one trader, Reuters said that at least nine cargoes traded and "there were probably more."

A second trader with direct knowledge of the deals said Chinese state-owned firms bought at least 12 cargoes for shipment between January and March. "China was buying right out of the gate this morning. It looks like we're back in business now," the source said.

The soybeans are expected to be shipped from grain terminals in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, the most direct route to Asia, the traders said.

Just a few days after Cisco "erroneously" advised its employees to avoid non-essential travel to China, Beijing has returned the favor, and according to the SCMP, Chinese researchers working in sensitive hi-tech sectors have been warned not to take any unnecessary trips to the United States "as unease grows in the business community following the arrest of a tech executive in Canada."

Workers at a research agency who can't avoid crossing the Pacific were also told in an internal memo that if they did have to travel to the US, they should remove any sensitive information from their mobile phones and laptops, the SCMP reported citing an anonymous source. The soft travel ban is the result of tensions following the arrest of Huawei Technologies CFO Sabrina Meng Wanzhou in Canada, who despite being released on bail was not allowed to leave the country.

Progress in the United States/China trade war seems to be happening at just the right time.

The automobile industry in China has been crippled, partly as a result of this trade war, partly due to the ongoing domestic economic slowdown in the mainland, and absent major subsidies - which don't appear to be coming - the outlook for the rest of 2018 and 2019 is not promising. The collapse has been historic and according to new data, continued through November.

November data confirmed a continuation of the ugly trends that we discussed last month. For instance, passenger vehicle wholesales were down 16.1% on the year, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. This data includes sedans, SUVs and crossover utility vehicles.

“Do the Jews Really Control America?” asked one Chinese newsweekly headline in 2009. The factoids doled out in such articles and in books about Jews in China—for example: “The world’s wealth is in Americans’ pockets; Americans are in Jews’ pockets”—would rightly be seen to be alarming in other contexts. But in China, where Jews are widely perceived as clever and accomplished, they are meant as compliments. Scan the shelves in any bookstore in China and you are likely to find best-selling self-help books based on Jewish knowledge. Most focus on how to make cash. Titles range from 101 Money Earning Secrets From Jews’ Notebooks to Learn To Make Money With the Jews.

The PRC Should Retaliate by Targeting Sheldon Adelson's Chinese Casinos

The detained Canadian businessman Michael Spavor, who worked with North Korea, is being investigated on suspicion of "harming China’s security", China said on Thursday, days after a former Canadian diplomat disappeared in the escalating diplomatic row between Beijing and Ottawa.

The state security bureau in the northeastern Chinese city of Dandong, which borders North Korea, has been investigating Spavor since Dec. 10, an official news site for the Liaoning province government said.

Canada has been unable to contact Spavor since he notified the government that he was being questioned by Chinese authorities, Foreign Ministry spokesman Guillaume Bérubé said in statement issued in Canada. Canadian officials were working hard to ascertain Spavor’s whereabouts and would continue to raise the issue with the Chinese government, Bérubé said.

After three days and a lengthy recap of both the government's case for holding Meng Wanzhou and her defense attorney's case for offering her a surety bond, British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Ehrcke has ruled that he is satisfied with the terms Meng’s lawyer is proposing for her bail. The Huawei CFO will be released from custody and live at her Vancouver home under round-the-clock in-person surveillance, and she will also wear an electronic ankle monitor while she awaits extradition hearings. Meng must also surrender her passport. Meng must also cover all the costs of her surveillance, carry paperwork detailing the terms of her bail at all times, and submit to checks from the RCMP. She will also be subject to a curfew.

The financial terms of her bail were steep: They required at least five people to post $3 million in collateral and a $7 million cash deposit. Meng's next court date has been set for Feb. 6.

President Donald Trump has said he would consider intervening in the case of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou if it would benefit international relations and help the US secure a trade deal with China.

Wanzhou was granted a bail of C$10million (US$7.4million) by a Canadian judge on Tuesday evening. She was arrested in Vancouver earlier this month and has been awaiting a hearing on extradition to the US.

After the news of the 46-year-old's release broke, the president indicated that the move - which is expected to placate angry Chinese officials - could be part of a broader trade deal with China.

When asked if he would intervene with the Justice Department in her case, Trump told Reuters: 'Whatever’s good for this country, I would do.

When Lotus Notes sought to sell its products abroad, the National Security Agency leaned on it to use a weaker version of cryptography in its product, according to Stephen Levy’s book Crypto. After years of discussions, the NSA allowed Lotus Notes to ship its product for export using 32-bit encryption, compared with a 64-bit version in the domestic version. At the time, cracking 64-bit encryption through brute force (computers cycling through ever possible key combination) was seen as just about impossible.

But 32-bit encryption was far more vulnerable, especially against the NSA’s supercomputers which, even then, could easily crack such codes within days, according to Levy’s book. The 32-bit version was so weak that even well-resourced thieves could break the encryption within 60 days using personal computers—a timeframe that everyone knew would get shorter as computing power became cheaper, faster, and more widely available.

Canadian citizen Michael Kovrig from the International Crisis Group was detained by state security officials in Beijing on the night of 10 December.

If International Crisis Group (ICG) employee Michael Kovrig was performing "relevant activities" for the group in China without it being listed, then he may have broken China's foreign NGO law, China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The US Programme Director of the Crisis Group Stephen Pomper has called for the immediate release of the company's senior adviser.

A roaring fire burst through the roof and caused mass evacuations at Google’s office in Beijing’s Zhongguancun tech district – known as China’s Silicon Valley.
The fire, which broke out at 11 am local time, burned through the roof of Google’s glass-fronted office building, sending a plume of thick, black smoke into the air.

Huge fire this morning on top of the building in Beijing’s Zhongguancun tech district that houses Google’s office. Employee tells me that everyone was evacuated for 20 mins but are now being let back in. Cause still not known. pic.twitter.com/Gvh6DejlLU

— Raymond Zhong (@zhonggg) December 12, 2018
Employees inside were evacuated from the building, but allowed to return later on, tech journalist Raymond Zhong reported. The cause of the fire is still unknown.

Former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig has been arrested and detained in China without explanation, the Canadian government confirmed Tuesday.

"Obviously we are aware of the situation of a Canadian detained in China," said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on his way into question period Tuesday. "We have been in direct contact with the Chinese diplomats and representatives. We are engaged on the file, which we take very seriously, and we are providing consular assistance to the family."

A written statement from Global Affairs Canada said that because of Canada's Privacy Act, no further information would be disclosed about the case of Kovrig, who until recently served as a Canadian diplomat in China.

Chinese officials have not given an official explanation for Kovrig's arrest.

Forget soybeans, auto imports, iPhones, crude oil, and cheap Chinese gadgets. Also forget tariffs, duties, and subsidies. Even forget weapons.

The real reason behind the US-China "trade" war has little to do with actual trade, and everything to do with what China's president, Xi Jinping, said when he visited a memory chip plant in the city of Wuhan earlier this year. In a white lab coat, he made an unexpectedly sentimental remark, comparing a computer chip to a human heart: “No matter how big a person is, he or she can never be strong without a sound and strong heart”.

At a conference in Beijing on Saturday, Chinese officials defended the idea that the People’s Liberation Army must be ready to respond to Freedom of Navigation Operations by the US in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait. Their statements follow the recent election defeat of a hostile Taiwanese government in midterm elections.

The Global Times Annual Conference in Beijing on Saturday saw Chinese government and military officials address the precarious military relationship with Washington, especially as it pertains to the South China Sea, where Beijing has taken efforts to expand and secure its territory, and Taiwan, which it views as a wayward, breakaway province.

The chief financial officer of Chinese telecom giant Huawei asked a Canadian court to grant her bail in exchange for collateral totaling more than $11million in real estate while promising to fund her own private security detail that would monitor her movements.

Meng Wanzhou, the CFO of Huawei and daughter of its founder, was detained at the request of the U.S. during a layover at the Vancouver airport on Dec. 1 - the same day that Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping of China agreed to a 90-day cease-fire in a trade dispute that threatens to disrupt global commerce.

The U.S. has accused Huawei of using a Hong Kong shell company to sell equipment in Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions.

One of the world’s largest silver producing countries, China, has announced the discovery of a huge deposit with estimated reserves of at least 1,500 tons.
The deposit was discovered by geologists in Henan Province. It is part of the Zhonghe deposit area, which boasts 280,000 tons of lead and 320,000 tons of zinc, according to the Henan Bureau of Geo-exploration and Mineral Development.

Col. Larry Wilkerson explains that it’s not the Chinese Huawei executive that violated law when circumventing US sanctions, but it is the US that violates them by imposing sanctions that were never agreed to on an international level

Apple is appealing a broad iPhone sales ban in China, the company told CNBC Monday.

The ban of some older iPhone models followed a request for injunction by Qualcomm, which has been locked in a legal battle with Apple for years. The chipmaker is alleging patent violations on features that lets users reformat the size and appearance of photos and manage applications on a touch screen when navigating through phone apps.

The two preliminary injunctions were granted Monday by the Fuzhou Intermediate People's Court in China. Apple says that it did not violate these patents and that the ban goes beyond the scope of the injunction itself.

Washington has said it needs to see progress in trade talks with China before March 1 or tariffs will go up. Separately, Beijing has said the US should withdraw its arrest warrant for Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou.

Xinhua news agency reported that a Long March 3B rocket carrying the Chang'e-4 lunar probe took off from the country's southwestern Xichang launch center at 2:23 a.m. local time (1823 UTC).

The rover is scheduled to land on the moon and begin conducting experiments and survey work by the end of December. The experiments, six of which are Chinese, include analyzing minerals and measuring radiation.

Beijing has summoned the US ambassador and lodged a “strong protest” over the detainment of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, China's foreign ministry announced, according to Reuters. Washington should also "withdraw" its arrest warrant.

Any further measures will depend on the next steps taken by the US, Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng told the ambassador, the news agency says.

Meng was arrested while changing planes in Vancouver on December 1. She now faces possible extradition to the United States over allegedly lying about her company's ties to SkyCom, a company that tried to sell US-manufactured technologies to Iran despite sanctions.

CNN reports that White House chief of staff John Kelly is expected to resign soon. There have been similar rumors before, but this time the news may actually be true. That is bad for Trump and U.S. policies. Kelly is one a the few counterweights to national security advisor John Bolton. His replacement will likely be whoever Bolton chooses. That will move contFrol over Trump policies further into the hands of the neo-conservatives.

It was Bolton who a week ago intentionally damaged U.S. relations with China.

The U.S. Justice Department arranged for Canada to arrest the chief financial officer of Huawei, Meng Wanzhou, over alleged U.S. sanctions violations with regards to Iran. The case is not over the sanction Trump recently imposed, but over an alleged collision with the sanction regime before the nuclear deal with Iran. The details are still unknown.

China’s warning marks an escalation in Beijing’s rhetoric as investors worry that the arrest could cause the shaky trade detente between the US and China to devolve into acrimony.

Police have responded to a break-in at the Vancouver house said to belong to the husband of Meng Wanzhou, the detained Huawei CFO who says she is suffering from health problems in Canadian jail.

Police collected evidence at the scene of the break-in but made no arrests, according to local media sources. There are no details yet available about the number of people involved, nor the motivation for the break-in, particularly whether it is related to the high-profile international arrest of the home-owner’s wife, who is pending extradition to the United States.

It is clear the US is pushing the battle line to our door … We can completely regard the US arrest of Meng Wanzhou as a declaration of war against China.”

So read an editorial in the Global Times of China on December 6, the day after Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of the Chinese company Huawei was taken hostage by the Canadian and American governments on December 1. The daughter of the founder of China’s largest telecommunications company was arbitrarily arrested and detained by Canadian police in Vancouver in transit between planes on December 1 on the pretext of a US extradition request.

Washington has asked Ottawa to arrest Meng Wanzhou and to extradite her. This young woman is the financial director and daughter of the founder of Huawei, the Chinese Telecom Giant. She was arrested on 6 December in Canada.

The motive for the war undertaken by Washington against Huawei is deep-rooted and spurious are the justifications.

The heart of the problem is that the Chinese firm uses a system of encryption that prevents the NSA from intercepting its communications. A number of governments and secret services in the non-Western world have begun to equip themselves exclusively with Huawei materials, and are doing so to protect the confidentiality of their communications.

After having imposed heavy taxes on Chinese merchandise - 250 billion dollars - President Trump, at the G-20, accepted a « truce » by postponing further measures, mainly because the US economy has been struck by the Chinese retaliation.

But apart from these commercial considerations, there are also some strategic reasons. Under pressure from the Pentagon and the Intelligence agencies, the USA forbade the use of Smartphones and telecommunications infrastructures from the Chinese company Huawei, warning that they may potentially be used for espionage, and pressured their allies to do the same.

During the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, last week, Argentina and China reached a trade agreement on, among other things, cherry exports, as the South American country strives to become “the world’s supermarket.”

The agreement will be signed on Sunday by Argentine President Mauricio Macri and Chinese President Xi Jinping, Argentina's agro-industry secretary, Luis Miguel Etchevehere, told the South China Morning Post (SCMP) Saturday.

Beijing has threatened Ottawa with consequences if it doesn't release Huawei's chief financial officer. The executive was detained over her alleged connection with a company that tried to smuggle embargoed phones into Iran.

“China strongly urges the Canadian side to immediately release the detained person, and earnestly protect their lawful, legitimate rights, otherwise Canada must accept full responsibility for the serious consequences caused,” Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng said on Saturday.

DETAILS TO FOLLOW

The arrest of a top Chinese technology executive by Canadian authorities acting at the behest of the United States is threatening to upend the Trump administration’s efforts to sustain a trade truce with China.

The arrest of Sabrina Meng, the chief financial officer of China’s largest mobile phone marker, has been condemned by Chinese officials, who are calling for her immediate release. The U.S. has reportedly requested Meng be extradited to New York, where she would reportedly face federal charges of violating Iran sanctions.

The bottom line on President Trump's trade truce with China is this, says Goldman Sachs: Once negotiators have finished their three months of talks, the U.S. is 'more likely than not' to double most of the tariffs imposed on its rival's products this year.

In other words, the risk of further escalation in a trade dispute between the world's two largest economies has been delayed rather than significantly reduced, and concerns that the conflict will hurt corporate profits while undermining the benefits of last year's GOP-led tax cuts are likely to continue casting a pall over U.S. financial markets.

Already, a nearly weeklong swoon in U.S. stocks has wiped out initial gains after Trump announced the results of his negotiations with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Buenos Aires.

China is getting set to launch the first-ever surface mission to the moon's far side.

The robotic Chang'e 4 mission is scheduled to launch atop a Long March 3B rocket on Friday (Dec. 7) at around 1:30 p.m. EST (1830 GMT; 2:30 a.m. on Dec. 8 local China time).

If all goes according to plan, Chang'e 4's lander-rover duo will touch down within the moon's South Pole?Aitken (SPA) basin after a 27-day flight, then study both the surface and subsurface of this region. [China's Moon Missions Explained (Infographic)]

Both the lander and the rover were designed as backups for China's successful Chang'e 3 mission, which put a lander and a rover named Yutu down on the moon in December 2013.

As questions swirl over who knew what, when before, during and after the historic Trump-Xi dinner, we previously learned that National Security Advisor John Bolton revealed that he knew in advance that Canadian police were preparing to arrest Huawei CFO Wanzhou Meng, meaning that Bolton knew that Meng was being taken into custody when he sat down alongside President Trump for Saturday's dinner trade talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The United States is considering Russia to be a menacing threat in the Pacific region and China a growing threat, US Navy Secretary Richard Spencer said on Thursday.

"Russia is a menacing threat, China is a pacing threat, and that is what we are focusing," Spencer said in a discussion at the Center of the Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC.

Spencer pointed out that the US Navy is ready to address those threats if it is called upon to act.

"We are ready to fight even tonight, if needed," Spencer said.

Market sentiment is so fragile that news of an arrest is enough to set off a selling wave.

The Dow plunged 700 points, or 2.8%, on Thursday. The S&P 500 lost 2.6%, while the Nasdaq fell 2%.

The arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou in Canada at the request of the United States renewed doubts about the US-China truce.

The Trump administration’s strong hostility towards Pakistan has pushed the only nuclear-armed, majority-Muslim nation into the arms of America’s reinstated foes, Russia and China.

The US has suspended $3 billion in security assistance to Pakistan this year after Washington accused its former ally of failing to do enough to combat terrorism, according to a report. This figure is much higher than the $1.3 billion quoted by the Trump administration earlier last month as well as the $1.66 billion reported by the Pentagon not long after.

Regardless of which figure is correct, the general consensus appears to be that US President Donald Trump’s tough war of words on Twitter has been more than just the Twitter tirade of a madman, but has actually evolved into concrete action which will directly affect Pakistan’s economy and its relationship with the outside world.

The trilateral summit meeting of Russia, India and China on the sidelines of the G20 at Buenos Aires on December 1 becomes a landmark event in Asian security and global politics. The so-called RIC format has taken a big leap forward with the leaderships of the three countries agreeing “to hold further such trilateral meetings on multilateral occasions” – to quote from an Indian External Affairs Ministry statement.

What is of particular interest is that Russian President Vladimir Putin took the initiative and both Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese Presdient Xi Jinping instinctively warmed up to the idea. The three leaders were intensely conscious of the backdrop in which the meeting took place.

National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow announced Monday that during the G20 summit, the Chinese promised to make trade changes “immediately.”

Kudlow told Breitbart News on a Monday press call that the timeline for this round of U.S.-China trade negotiations is going to move fast. He stressed that the credibility of the current discussion between the two nations will hinge on rapid movement. This is something the two sides discussed specifically at last week’s G20 Argentina meetings, including the meeting involving President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. He did not give a definitive timeline aside from indicating rapid movement.

He told the press on the conference call that China promised during the G20 meetings it would make changes on trade “immediately.”

The global importance of the Chinese yuan seems destined to rise, according to strategists and economists who say flows in the currency will grow over the long term if Beijing continues to gradually open its financial system.

The yuan will become more globally important as China further allows foreign capital into the country through selective financial opening and pursues its Belt and Road Initiative trade, said Chi Lo, senior economist for Greater China at BNP Paribas Asset Management in Hong Kong.

After a weekend in which the Trump administration, to much fanfare, announced a breakthrough in the trade war with China according to which Beijing would purchase substantial amounts of US farm products and remove barriers to trade in exchange for a delay of new tariffs and higher tariff rates, Donald Trump left his top advisers scrambling on Monday to explain just what was in the trade deal he claimed he’d struck with China to reduce tariffs on U.S. cars exported to the country - an agreement that doesn’t exist on paper and hasn’t been confirmed in Beijing.

The whereabouts of Chinese scientist He Jiankui, who claims to have created the world's first gene-edited babies, remain unknown amid rumours that he has been arrested.

Reports claimed He was placed under effective house arrest in Shenzhen after making an appearance at the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing in Hong Kong last Wednesday.

However, claims of He's detention were dismissed by his former-employer, Southern University of Science and Technology, according to South China Morning Post. The university declined to elaborate further.

The agreement reached by President Trump and President Xi Jinping of China to effectively pause their trade war and work toward a pact appears to be aimed at giving the two leaders some political breathing room after an escalating fight has begun inflicting economic damage on both sides of the Pacific.

The temporary truce, forged over a working dinner on Saturday night in Buenos Aires, does little to resolve the deep differences between the two nations and is more a political agreement than a substantive one. Both sides immediately positioned the cease-fire as a domestic victory while staking out areas where they would not compromise.