U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday spurned the Taiwanese president’s suggestion that the two leaders hold another phone call, saying he did not want to create problems for Chinese President Xi Jinping when Beijing appears to be helping efforts to rein in North Korea.

Chinese President Xi Jinping sends personal message of friendship to Russian President Putin on China's behalf, scotching attempt by US to make trouble between them.

Two days after the US military began to move the controversial THAAD anti-missile system into its deployment site in a South Korean golf course (over the protests of hundreds of locals who were promptly quieted when the police showed up), despite vocal protests from China which is "resolutely opposed" to the THAAD deployment and believes such a move would destabilize the regional balance of power, China said on Thursday that it would stage live fire drills and test new weapons to protect its national security, its Defense Ministry said.

"The deployment of the THAAD anti-missile system in South Korea damages the regional strategic balance and stability. The Chinese side is resolutely opposed to this" Defense Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun told reporters on Thursday when asked about the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system.

The Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday warned that military options in resolving the North Korean issue are fraught with disaster in the region, reiterating Moscow’s concerns with the deployment of the US missile system in South Korea.

“It is obvious that heavy-handed approaches that are beginning to be mentioned publicly are fraught with catastrophic consequences for the Korean Peninsula and the whole of Northeast Asia,” Lavrov said.

Speaking at the VI Moscow Conference on International Security, he expressed concern about the degrading situation in the region with North Korea’s continued development of its nuclear missile program.

Lavrov also voiced Moscow’s disapproval “with the disproportionate build-up under the pretext of the North Korean threat of the US and its regional allies’ military activity.”

Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation confirmed the beginning of realization of the contract on the S-400 to China, said the press service of Russia FSVTS.
"FSVTS is confirmed that 'Rosoboronexport' acts in accordance with the terms of the contract signed", according to the FSVTS.

China has become the first customer for the S-400. Signing the contract was published in the spring of 2015. According to the media, the total sum of the deal was about $ 3 billion.
Earlier, the media, referring to the general director of "Rosoboronexport" Aleksandra Micah, said that Russia has begun to implement an agreement on deliveries of S-400 China.

Chinese Navy has received its second aircraft carrier.

Is designated as Type 001A since the first aircraft carrier, the Chinese have built a brand independently.

Xinhua announced: "Another aircraft carrier is lowered to the water in the morning on April 26, in the port Danlan".

The ceremony was attended by Deputy Chairman of the Central Military Council Chanlun Fan who is the ship's deck broke a bottle of champagne.

Building Type 001A began in November 2013's. The main role of the company Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Company .

On Wednesday afternoon, Trump will hold a briefing for all 100 senators on North Korea. Reportedly a similar session is planned for House members – both meetings to be held in a “sensitive compartmented information facility” in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

Secretary of Defense Mattis, Joint Chiefs Chairman Dunford, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coates, and Secretary of State Tillerson will conduct the briefing.

On April 25, marking the anniversary of the founding of its army, North Korea held live-fire drills, involving hundreds of artillery pieces – instead of a sixth nuclear test some observers expected.

According to China Foundation for International and Strategic Studies Foreign Policy director Zhang Tuosheng, pressure from China, Washington, South Korea and Japan got Pyongyang to show restraint – whether short or longer-term remains to be seen.

North Korea will continue its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs and the U.S. cannot count on China to apply sufficient pressure to deter the growing threat, experts told a Senate panel Tuesday.

Also, a U.S. military strike on Pyongyang would pose huge risks for the U.S., South Korea and other allies in the region, and the outlook for regime change is grim even if economic incentives were offered.

"The challenges emanating from North Korea are obviously real, dangerous and in the near term," Ashley Tellis, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace testified to at full Senate Armed Services Committee hearing about policy and strategy in the Asia-Pacific region.

Tellis added, "The challenges emanating from China are long term, enduring and aimed fundamentally at decoupling the United States from its Asian partners."

According to Bloomberg, Vladimir Putin is “quietly” annexing the Donbass region into Mother Russia. Meanwhile, NATO is holding a parliamentary assembly in the middle of icebound nowhere. Here in Germany the geniuses in charge of the government have created a “Ministry of Truth” in order to suppress deadly populism. Terror still grips us, North Korea is set to start Armageddon, and America’s Rex Tillerson has an Exxon plan for Syria. In short, Trump changed nothing. Here we are, still caught in Alice’s Wonderland.

According to Bloomberg, Vladimir Putin is “quietly” annexing the Donbass region into Mother Russia. Meanwhile, NATO is holding a parliamentary assembly in the middle of icebound nowhere. Here in Germany the geniuses in charge of the government have created a “Ministry of Truth” in order to suppress deadly populism. Terror still grips us, North Korea is set to start Armageddon, and America’s Rex Tillerson has an Exxon plan for Syria. In short, Trump changed nothing. Here we are, still caught in Alice’s Wonderland.

The Russia-China strategic partnership, uniting the Pentagon's avowed top two "existential" threats to America, does not come with a formal treaty signed with pomp, circumstance - and a military parade.

The current chair of the committee, Agustin Carstens, the governor of the Bank of Mexico, sought to cover over the significance of the decision by suggesting that the previous wording had been removed because “the use of the word protectionism is very ambiguous.”

In reality, the omission of any disavowal of protectionism is an unmistakable expression of mounting trade tensions, fueled above all by the Trump administration.

These conflicts could not be completely suppressed at the meeting. In his statement to the IMFC, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said

Germany “commits to keep the global economy open, resist protectionism and keep global economic and financial cooperation on track.”

This statement stood in stark contrast to the remarks of US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. He said the US would

A Chinese state-run newspaper said Saturday that China would not engage militarily if the US conducted a surgical strike on North Korea’s nuclear facility, noting it would only resort to diplomatic channels to oppose such a move.

Russia and China already have established systems to do global trade bypassing the US dollar. What Washington did to Iran — cutting their banks off SWIFT – is now unthinkable against Russia and China.

So we're already on our way, slowly but surely, towards a BRICS "gold marketplace." A "new financial architecture" is being built. That will imply the eventual inability of the US Fed to export inflation to other nations – especially those included in BRICS, EEU and SCO.

The Hollow Men

Retired U.S. Marine Corps General James Mattis testifies before a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on his nomination to serve as defense secretary in Washington, U.S. January 12, 2017
© REUTERS/ JONATHAN ERNST
US Defense Secretary Accuses Damascus of Retaining Chemical Weapons

As tensions heat up with North Korea and the potential for a nuclear exchange becomes all the more real, residents of Japan are panic buying everything from nuclear shelters to air purifiers in preparation:

Sales of nuclear shelters and radiation-blocking air purifiers have surged in Japan in recent weeks as North Korea has pressed ahead with missile tests in defiance of U.N. sanctions.

A small company that specializes in building nuclear shelters, generally under people’s houses, has received eight orders in April alone compared with six orders during a typical year.

The company, Oribe Seiki Seisakusho, based in Kobe, western Japan, also has sold out of 50 Swiss-made air purifiers, which are said to keep out radiation and poisonous gas, and is trying to get more, said Nobuko Oribe, the company’s director

The gold mine is located in the town of Silin on Jiaodong Peninsula in Shandong province, in the east of China, Chinese news agencies report.

According to preliminary estimates, gold deposits are located on the area of two kilometres at the depth of 67 meters. The volume of gold reserves in the area is about 382.58 tons, but exploration works continue. It is believed that the deposit may contain up to 550 tons of gold.

Russia strongly backs Iranian membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), now that UN Security Council sanctions have been lifted from the country, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

Iran is ready to become a full-fledged member of the organization, Lavrov said Friday during an SCO Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in Astana. Tehran has “settled the problem of the UN Security Council sanctions and hence fully meets the SCO membership criteria,” according to Lavrov.

"The more aggressive the Americans are the sooner they will see the final collapse of the dollar as the only way for the victims of American aggression to stop this aggression is to get rid of the dollar. As soon as we and China are through with the dollar, it will be the end of the United States’ military might," Sergey Glazyev said in an interview with TASS.

Having repeatedly threatened the annihilation of its neighbor to the south, and most recently warning of a "super-mighty preemptive strike" against the US, one day after it emerged that Pyongyang appeared to have resumed activity at its Punggye-ri Nuclear test site, North Korea asked China not to step up anti-North sanctions, warning of "catastrophic consequences" in their bilateral relations.

Pyongyang issued the warning through commentary written by a person named Jong Phil on its official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), which was released Saturday.

As South Korea's Yonhap news agency writes, it's rare for Pyongyang's media to level criticism at Beijing, though the KCNA didn't directly mention China in the commentary titled "Are you good at dancing to the tune of others" and dated Friday. The commentary instead called the nation at issue "a country around the DPRK," using North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Americans may have been led to believe through their education systems, their religious institutions, mainstream media and popular culture that their government’s foreign policy is guided by the dictates of conscience, humanitarian considerations, and empathy for chemically mauled infants as well as a national vocation to bring “freedom and democracy” to the world.

A more honest and rigorous review of America’s involvement in military conflicts, and its support for Israel, Saudi Arabia and other rogue states around the world reveal the shallowness of this understanding.

The structure of power in the U.S. as with other imperialist powers throughout history demands certain economic arrangements and military formations on the world stage.

Diplomats, off the record, occasionally let it slip there may have been a coded message delivered to NATO to the effect that if one of the strategic members is seriously harassed — be it in Ukraine or in the South China Sea – NATO will have to deal with both.

Donald Trump’s latest moves toward North Korea are “dangerous” and sow confusion in a tense geopolitical scenario, says veteran Korea analyst Daniel C Sneider.

Trump’s recent declaration that he ordered a US carrier strike group to race toward Korea when there was no such force in the vicinity undercuts American credibility and increases the possibility of a misstep, said Sneider, associate director of research for Stanford University’s Walter H Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.

“War is always possible,” said Sneider, a former Asia correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor. “What Trump is doing is dangerous if it leads to miscalculation by the North Koreans, and it’s dangerous if the US actually acts on this vague threat of doing something, presumably with the use of force.”

North Korea is ready for an all-out war if the United States starts it, the country's Embassy in Russia said.

"If they [the US] commit a reckless provocation, the Korean Revolutionary Forces will deal a devastating blow and respond with an all-out war to an all-out war, respond to a nuclear war with a nuclear strike," an attache of the North Korean Embassy Moscow said.

Tensions on the Korean peninsula have risen in the wake of Pyongyang's nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches conducted in violation of the UN Security Council's resolutions.

North Korea reportedly carried out the most recent missile test early on Sunday. However, the launch was unsuccessful, according to South Korean defense officials. The North Korean Foreign Ministry said that the alleged missile launch had not been announced officially, though it's Pyongyang's "sovereign right" to conduct such tests.

Perhaps it is time to shift attention away from the "rally around the flag" diversion that is North Korea and pay some attention to China, which delighted by the ongoing geopolitical distractions is currently building the world's largest submarine facility, which will be able to produce as many as four ultramodern nuclear submarines at a time.

Starting later this year, China's new submarine factory on the Yellow Sea will churn out nuclear-powered attack submarines (or SSNs) ensuring that the sub program of the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) will soon be a deadly global force. Once fully operational, the assembly line will enable China to at least match USN SSN production.

When this enclosed submarine factory begins operation later this year, the BSHIC will be able to quickly build nuclear submarines.

While US and North Korean officials have traded verbal missiles in the past few days, China has been noticably quiet. However, that just changed as a prominent Chinese expert told The Nikkei that China likely will halt crude oil exports to North Korea should Pyongyang conduct its sixth nuclear test, signaling a tougher attitude by Beijing toward its rogue neighbor.

North Korea relies almost entirely on China for oil. The Asian giant shipped about 500,000 tons of crude to the North each year until 2013, according to the Chinese customs agency. Bilateral ties cooled that year after Pyongyang carried out its third nuclear test, and exports officially have remained at zero since 2014. But China is believed to still provide crude to North Korea off the books. A complete freeze would impact the North Korean economy.

China put cruise missile-capable bombers "on high alert" this week as the United States sees evidence the Chinese military is preparing to respond to a potential situation in North Korea, a US defense official told CNN.

The official said the United States has also seen an extraordinary number of Chinese military aircraft being brought up to full readiness.

Roger Thompson, a defense analyst and professor at Kyung Hee University in South Korea, says the array of powerful anti-ship weapons developed in recent years by potential U.S. enemies, including China, Russia and Iran, increase carriers’ vulnerability.

The new weapons include land-based ballistic missiles, such as China’s Dong Feng-21 anti-ship missile, which has a claimed range of 1,100 miles (1,770 kilometers) and moves at 10 times the speed of sound. Certain Russian and Chinese submarines can fire salvoes of precision-guided cruise missiles from afar, potentially overwhelming carrier-fleet anti-missile defense.

Russia, China, Iran and other countries also have so-called super-cavitating torpedoes. These form an air bubble in front of them, enabling them to travel at hundreds of miles per hour. The torpedoes cannot be guided, but if aimed straight at a ship they are difficult to avoid.

The political decision of whether or not the US is going to attack North Korea rests at least in part on the effectiveness of the $40 billion US missile defense system, and its ability to shoot down retaliatory strikes from North Korea. While the Pentagon has insisted they have 100% confidence they can do so, experts are warning the system probably doesn’t work.

Indeed, the Union of Concerned Scientists has even issued a statement warning that Pentagon confidence is not only unwarranted from the data, but may be misinforming politicians making decisions on starting a war on the basis of their defensive capabilities.

The experts warn that there has been very limited testing of the missile defense system, and even in those tests, which are in ideal situations and not real world conflicts, the system has only succeeded three times out of nine. In a real world scenario, it would likely be even less dependable.

The inexperienced Trump admin is giving itself too much credit. Russia-China ties are on a completely different level from US-Chinese contacts

Russia has blocked the UN Security Council from condemning North Korea's latest missile test even though China had backed the strongly-worded statement drafted by the United States, diplomats said.

The proposed statement on April 19 would have demanded that North Korea "conduct no further nuclear tests" and halt missile launches after Pyongyang carried out a failed test over the weekend.

Russia wanted to include language contained in a previous resolution stressing the need to achieve a solution through dialogue, council diplomats said.

Beijing says Iranian and Chinese companies will sign the first commercial contracts to redesign the Arak heavy water nuclear reactor in central Iran in the weekend.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Lu Kang, told a daily news briefing on Thursday that the accords would be inked in Vienna on Sunday, with initial agreements having already been reached in Beijing.

He further described the contracts as an important part of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, dubbed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Theoretical warnings about risks inherent in China's shadow banking system became all too for 150 customers of China's largest private bank, when Minsheng Banking Corp found itself involved in a 3 billion yuan (US$436 million) fraud case, after it emerged that a branch chief of the lender in Beijing allegedly issued false bank acceptance bills and later secured funds from individual investors to cover up the misdeed.

According to SCMP, an accidental inquiry from an investor exposed the fact that the WMPs sold by a Minsheng branch didn’t even exist. When shocked investors rushed to the bank, they found the head of the branch had been taken into police custody and the supposed due payment date had passed.

The US could literally blow North Korea off the map using tactical nuclear weapons based in Japan, South Korea and at sea with the 7th Fleet. Or delivered by B-52 and B-1 bombers and cruise missiles. But this would cause clouds of lethal radiation and radioactive dust to blanket Japan, South Korea and heavily industrialized northeast China, including the capital, Beijing.

China would be expected to threaten retaliation against the United States, Japan and South Korea to deter a nuclear war in next door Korea. At the same time, if heavily attacked, a fight-to-the-end North Korea may fire off a number of nuclear-armed medium-range missiles at Tokyo, Osaka, Okinawa and South Korea. These missiles are hidden in caves in the mountains on wheeled transporters and hard to identify and knock out.

This is a huge risk. Such a nuclear exchange would expose about a third of the world’s economy to nuclear contamination, not to mention spreading nuclear winter around the globe.

The realized truth of modern history is crystal clear. Washington had no business intervening in a quarrel between two no-count wanna be dictators (Syngman Rhee and Kim il Sung) on the Korean peninsula in June 1950, and surely has no business still stationing 29,000 American soldiers there 67 years latter.

Yet owing to the institutionalized albatross of that mis-vectored history, the world is now much closer to the brink of nuclear war than at any time since the dark days of the early cold war. And the Donald has become just the latest political tourist in the Oval Office to succumb to the Deep State’s false, self-serving narrative about why the American imperium remains decamped on the 38th parallel.

It may have arrived with little fanfare, but Russia’s SWIFT alternative has, more or less, arrived. Speaking in no uncertain terms at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin late last month, Elvira Nabiullina, the Governor of Russia’s central bank, stated: “We have finished working on our own payment system, and if something happens, all operations in SWIFT format will work inside the country. We have created an alternative.”

Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson exchanged views on the situation on the Korean Peninsula via phone on Sunday.

The talk came after the Democratic People's Republic of Korea had reportedly fired an unidentified missile early on Sunday from its eastern coastal city of Sinpo.

But the missile was believed to have exploded on launch, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Yang and Tillerson also discussed the implementation of those agreements reached by the two countries' presidents during their first meeting in the U.S. state of Florida earlier this month.

The successful meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump at the Mar-a-Lago estate has set a constructive tone, defined the direction and made a plan for the development of bilateral ties, Yang told Tillerson, noting that the two leaders also held a good phone conversation just a few days ago.

VIDEO footage appears to show Russian military forces being moved on mass to the border with North Korea as the world edges closer to World War 3.Russia has reportedly moved weapons towards Vladivostok, just eight miles from the border with North Korea.The city is within striking distance of Kim Jong-un’s secretive state.

Although unconfirmed by the Russian government, the movement of tanks and missiles was spotted by terrified people living in the border city and posted on social media.According to reports, the military convoy caught on camera included eight surface-to-air missiles, all part of Russian Air Defence.

Vladimir Putin already has a major navy base in Vladivostok.

Three US aircraft carriers, USS Carl Vinson, USS Ronald Reagan and USS Nimitz, will enter the Sea of Japan next week, Yonhap News Agency reported, citing a South Korean government source.

China has effectively subsidized and supported the North Korean state for the past 70 years as a buffer against a land invasion from South Korea. China supplies North Korea with fossil fuels and other essentials and protects it diplomatically.

But does this buffer-state strategy make sense in today's world? The threat is now from nuclear missiles and trade wars, not a land invasion. Though we cannot know what's being discussed or decided behind close doors, the high cost of subsidizing a rogue nuclear state for the now-irrelevant value of a physical buffer may finally be weighing on Chinese decision-makers.

Then there's the all-important matter of "face". The perception of status, influence and power--what's known as "face"--is the core concern in East-Asian societies. "Losing face" by being revealed as powerless and lacking influence is to be avoided at all costs.

Here's the Commander-in-chief of the Beautiful Piece of Chocolate Cake School of Foreign Policy, expanding on his next move regarding North Korea.

"We are sending an armada. Very powerful. We have submarines. Very powerful. Far more powerful than the aircraft carrier. That I can tell you."

As if bombing nuclear-armed North Korea would be as much of a piece of cake as Tomahawking a semi-deserted air base in Syria. But then, that's the beauty of a box of chocolates foreign policy; you never know what you're gonna get.

U.S. President Donald Trump (R) and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg shake hands during a joint news conference in the East Room at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 12, 2017.
© REUTERS/ JONATHAN ERNST
Trump: NATO No Longer Obsolete, Needs to Play Bigger Role Fighting Daesh

With just two days to go until North Korea's "Day of the Sun" celebrations, when as reported yesterday it may conduct its 6th nuclear test at the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site, NBC reports citing multiple senior U.S. intelligence officials that in the latest stepwise escalation, the U.S. is prepared to launch a preemptive strike with conventional weapons against North Korea should officials become convinced that Kim Jong-Un's nation North Korea is about to follow through with a nuclear weapons test. Note: North Korea does not even have to carry out the text: mere conviction on the side of the US that it would, is sufficient.

China has warned the US against using military force against North Korea, after a surprise redeployment of an aircraft carrier group. Washington’s regional allies said they expect it to consult with them before any action.
Tension is mounting in the region as US President Donald Trump said he would solve the “North Korean problem” with or without China’s help. The warning came amid the diversion of the aircraft carrier group ‘USS Carl Vinson’ to the Korean Peninsula and a week after Trump ordered the US Navy to fire a barrage of 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airbase as punishment for an alleged chemical attack in Idlib province.

Responding to US belligerence, Beijing called against using force against Pyongyang.

“Military force cannot resolve the issue,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters in Beijing. “Amid challenge there is opportunity. Amid tensions we will also find a kind of opportunity to return to talks.”

China would step up its protection of North Korea should the isolated state halt its nuclear program, an editorial in a state-backed newspaper said on Thursday, as Beijing tries to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula.

Pyongyang's continued nuclear and missile testing program has prompted the United States to send a navy carrier group to near the Korean peninsula in a show of force aimed at deterring more tests.

North Korea marks the 105th anniversary of the birth of state founder Kim Il Sung on Saturday, North Korea's biggest national day called "Day of the Sun". Leaders have in the past used the date to carry out weapons tests.

China, North Korea's main ally, has called for a peaceful resolution of the Korean tensions.

China has warned that “conflict could break out at any moment” on the Korean Peninsula, as North Korea and the United States increasingly seem headed for a potential military confrontation.

Speaking on Friday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi also said there would be “no winner” in a potential war, and that the party that triggered conflict would “pay the price.”

“Dialogue is the only possible solution,” he said during a joint press conference with his French counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault in Beijing.

On Thursday China's Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, said Palestinians must be able to build an independent state to correct a "historical injustice."

In a press conference in Beijing with Palestine's Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki, Wang reiterated China’s longstanding support for an end to Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine and the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

Wang noted that 70 years after the U.N. General Assembly passed Resolution 181 calling for the creation of an independent Palestine alongside Israel, Palestinians are still being denied their independence.

China's national airline, Air China, suspended flights from Beijing to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, from late on Friday, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said.

It did not say why the flights, which operate on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, were being suspended.

It appears that the real reason why has Trump capitulated to the Deep State so quickly is the final BRICS leadership’s decision to start the dumping of the fiat dollar in matters of mutual trade and economic cooperation between the BRICS member countries.

This measure puts Donald Trump’s most ambitious campaign promise of “Making America Great Again” through economic recovery and military upgrade in grave danger, as the BRICS Alliance starts requiring the US government to pay for BRICS resources with real, hard currencies only.

He’s backing off from his vow to blacklist the country as a currency manipulator.

The resolution is a slightly revised version of previous similar document, which condemns the use of chemical weapons in Syria. The document also demands that Damascus hand over all information on flights on the day of the incident to the Joint Investigative Mechanism of the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and provide access to the military bases from which strikes against Khan Sheikhoun could be carried out. The resolution also threatens Syria with sanctions and the use of military force under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.

Last week, Russia described the document as "inadmissible" and prepared its own resolution, which envisages a full-scale investigation on the ground by UN and OPCW experts.

In a dramatic shift in policy that could seriously change future events, China has suggested it would bomb North Korea if it crosses their so-called “bottom line.” They even threatened North Korea’s nuclear program.

A viral video showing an army of little orange robots sorting out packages in a warehouse in eastern China is the latest example of how machines are increasingly taking over menial factory work on the mainland.
The behind-the-scenes footage of the self-charging robot army in a sorting centre of Chinese delivery powerhouse Shentong (STO) Express was shared on People’s Daily’s social media accounts on Sunday.

The video showed dozens of round orange Hikvision robots – each the size of a seat cushion – swiveling across the floor of the large warehouse in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province.

Russia and China signed a contract in November 2015 for the delivery of 24 Su-35 fighter jets

The CIA/NSA political hit on General Michael Flynn appeared at first to have been a warning shot against Trump, and the Congress’ (((bipartisan))) support of replacement H.R. McMaster for the role of National Security Advisor has us falsely assuming that the duly-elected Executive Branch would retain control of him, as the Constitution commands.

But that assumption is increasingly proving false. There is no doubt in my mind that President Donald Trump is being held under duress; that is a theory and I don’t have hard evidence for, but it’s clear that overnight he has gone from a roaring, defiant lion, to script reading pussy-cat. The empowerment of Kushner and Cohn, the increasing isolation of Bannon, and a 180 on policy all come shortly after McMaster’s ascension.

Gold is bumping up against the 200-day moving average this morning, as geopolitical tensions remain supportive. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is on his way to Russia, where the Syrian situation is likely to be high on the agenda. Tillerson has been aggressive in his comments on Russian compliance in the Syrian chemical attack. The U.S. battle group sailing towards the Koran peninsula has created warnings from North Korea of catastrophic consequences. Capital has flowed into the yen as the perceived safe haven carry trade and the weakening of the dollar has also lent some support to the metals complex.

According to American media, the Donald Trump Administration has sent an aircraft carrier battle group to the Korean coast. Reuters has cited a source in the White House asserting that, in so doing, the US is responding to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s nuclear program’s ballistic missile testing. Naturally, the question arises: does the White House not want to repeat what has been done in Syria in the case with North Korea? Let’s discuss this.

I originally argued that one of the key objectives of the attack on Syria was a show of force for Trump’s negotiations with Xi Jinping, who was in the US at the time. Of course, the domestic political situation as well as the desire to reverse the situation in the Syrian conflict and demonstrate a show of force to Russia also played a role, but let us once and for all abandon the idea that the world revolves around us. There’s no need to turn into Ukrainians.

While the catalyst is unclear, it appears the market dropped as headlines of further sanctions against Russia appeared and reports of China deploiying 150,000 troops to its North Korea border.

According to Korean news agency Chosun, the "Chinese army has deployed about 150,000 troops to the North Korean border in two groups to prepare for unforeseen circumstances." The reason: the prospect of "military options", such as preemptive attacks on North Korea, like the one the United States launched on Syria.

More Google translated:

As the United States announced its independent North Korean behavior and moved the United States Navy's nuclear-powered Calvinus (CVN-70) carrier class to Singapore, the Chinese army has deployed about 150,000 troops in two groups to prepare for unforeseen circumstances.

With all eyes on the Syria airstrikes, however, the expected showdown over North Korea policy ended with no significant breakthroughs to announce.

The two leaders instead broadly vowed to work more closely to get the North to abandon its nuclear weapons, a vow that Pyongyang has heard many times before.