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Quickie

Quickie

Colonel
'We Won't Make Frankensteins,' Cloning Giant Boyalife's CEO Says

by DAVID LOM and ERIC BACULINAO

Dr. Xu: Moving Forward From 'Made in China' to 'Invented in China' 1:43
BEIJING — The head of a Chinese firm that is building the world's biggest animal cloning factory has vowed not to use the technology on people — for now, at least.

Biotech company Boyalife Group's $30 million facility in the coastal city of Tianjin will produce embryos of cattle as well as racehorses and contraband-sniffing dogs when it becomes operational next year.

"No, we don't do human cloning, we won't make Frankensteins," said Dr. Xu Xiaochun, its chief executive. "The technology we have is very advanced ... [but if uncontrolled] technology can also do damage ... Every technology has to have a boundary."

As a 12-year-old, Xu became fascinated with plant cloning. Now aged 44, he is leading China's charge to become a world leader in cloning technology.

"Our primary focus is prime quality beef," Xu told NBC News in an exclusive interview, noting that China's cattle industry hasn't traditionally focused on meat production.

However, beef consumption is currently growing at double-digit rates in the country, with imports increasing due to the low quality of China's domestic beef.

The Tianjin plant will initially produce a 100,000 embryos of prime beef cattle per year. That figure is eventually expected to rise to 1 million embryos annually, which will make it the planet's largest animal-cloning operation.

The bomb-sniffing dogs have become "a major force in anti-terrorism campaigns," Xu said, with about 600 cloned dogs working globally.

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Three cloned puppies snuggle in an incubator at a Boyalife Group facility in Tianjin, China, in 2014. BOYALIFE GROUP / AFP - Getty Images
"We will only select the really top dogs for cloning like selecting only those who could go to Harvard or Peking University," he added.

But Xu suggested society was not yet ready to embrace reproductive human cloning.

"Technology is moving very fast ... [and] social values can change," he said. "Maybe in 100 years, in 200 years, people will think differently. [They] may think this technology is going to benefit the human race as a whole ... Boyalife will move along with social values."

Xu added: "Different people have different characters ... We want to keep this diversity. We really don't want the entire society to become one billion Einsteins."

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Jeff Head

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Rest in Peace, General Schwarzkopf! You were a great American, and you knew how to fight and win a war. God bless you and yours...and may your loved ones be comforted in your passing, sure in the knowledge that you will all be reunited one day.

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000-Schwarzkopf.jpg

NOTE: Guys, this is my bad. He actually died three years ago today and due to FB posting old articles I saw it and posted it around. He was a good man, and it is worth noting the day...but it was not this year.
 
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Blackstone

Blackstone

Brigadier
The cat is finally out of the bag, and China might consider using the opportunity to make its nuclear program as transparent as US and Russia; same degree, no more, no less.

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China’s most senior communist cadres have been told the party faces its most damaging case of treason since the founding of the regimen in 1949.

In a confidential speech to party cadres reported by two independent political magazines in Hong Kong, Meng Jianzhu, the country’s security tsar, revealed that the most closely guarded secrets, including nuclear codes, had been lost to America.

Mr Meng was reporting on the failure of his attempts to lure back a leading defector and the fallout of the incident.

The state secrets passed to Washington included personnel data, communications codes, nuclear weapons launch protocols and blueprints of the Zhongnanhai leadership compound, the magazines reported.

Ling Wancheng fled to the US after his brother Ling Jihua, the right-hand man of former president Hu Jintao, was brought down by a scandal caused when his Ferrari-driving son was killed in a spectacular car crash in central Beijing.

While Ling Jihua was detained by Chinese security, his brother escaped with a cache of 2700 classified documents as an insurance policy. The Chinese leadership sent a security delegation, headed by Mr Meng, to demand his extradition from the US last year but it returned empty-handed.

“While at the head of the party’s central institutions, director of the office of the party and the nation, Ling dared to steal top secrets from the archives in his trust and these were ultimately handed to the US,” said Mr Meng, who described the breach as the most serious in 60 years.

The magazines, Qianshao and Chengming, said three categories of classified information were handed to the Americans.

Plans for the Zhongnanhai leadership retreat, a heavily protected enclave of villas and lakes near the palaces of the emperors in Beijing, were transferred, with details of its security passwords and communications codes.

The second category included information on command and control systems linking the Communist Party central committee in times of crisis with the state council, China’s cabinet, and the Central Military Commission, the supreme command of the armed forces.

Third on the list were launch protocols and procedures devised to guarantee control over China’s non-conventional weapons, including its nuclear deterrent, by the party central committee and the CMC.

Mr Meng is reported to have spoken angrily as he detailed the case against Mr Ling at an internal party meeting in southern China.

Ling Jihua was at the heart of power until the present leader, Xi Jinping, took over in 2012. He was “responsible for the safety, health and confidentiality” of the members of China’s supreme ruling body, the Politburo standing committee, according to a profile prepared by Cheng Li of the Brookings Institution.

“He (was) also responsible for drafting key documents, collecting important information for decision-making and monitoring the implementation of central directives and the instructions of top leaders,” it added.

Chinese analysts believe the security chief’s speech may have been deliberately leaked to prepare opinion in the party for the eventual trial and conviction of Ling Jihua. The reports exculpated the man who now holds Mr Ling’s old job, Li Zhanshu.

Mr Li is even more powerful than his predecessor and accompanied the President on his tour of Britain, attending a state banquet with the Queen at Buckingham Palace.
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Blackstone

Blackstone

Brigadier
Looks like Kim Jong-un just executed another one of his lieutenants.

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A top aide to the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has died in a car crash, state news agency KCNA has said.

Kim Yang-gon, 73, was a secretary of the ruling Workers' Party and was in charge of ties with South Korea.

He was part of a high-level delegation from North Korea that helped ease a stand-off with the South in August, after an exchange of artillery fire.

The state news agency called him Kim Jong-un's "closest comrade and a solid revolutionary partner".

"Comrade Kim Yang-gon, a Workers' Party secretary and member of the party Central Committee Politbureau... died in a traffic accident at 6:15am, Tuesday, at age 73," KCNA said, without giving details.

It added that Kim Jong-un would lead an 80-member state funeral for Mr Kim on Thursday.

Tension between North and South Korea increased in August when a border blast injured two South Korean soldiers.

Meetings at that time eventually led to the two countries stepping away from a military confrontation.
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Brumby

Brumby

Major
Greek and Turkish jets engaged in a brief dogfight

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According to Greek media outlets, Greek and Turkish jets engaged in a brief dogfight over the Aegean Sea after Turkish aircraft violated Greek airspace “several times.”
As we
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in the aftermath of the
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over the Syria-Turkey border last month, the skies surrounding the
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are often the theater of incidents between the HAF (Hellenic Air Force) and the TuAF.

In fact Greece claims 10 miles of air space around a chain of Greek islands lined up along the Turkish west coast, part of those are in very close proximity to the mainland, while Turkey recognizes only six miles (that is to say the extent of the Greek territorial waters, recognized by each other): even though the Greek authorities often report unauthorised military flights directly over the Greek islands, the majority of the close encounters and alleged violations (2,244 in 2014) take place within the four-mile radius between the boundary of the territorial waters (as said, recognized by both parties) and the 10-mile radius which Athens considers its sovereign airspace (while
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The latest such incidents (the first since early December) occurred on Dec. 29.

According to
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, Greek and Turkish jets engaged in a brief dogfight over the Aegean Sea after a formation of six Turkish aircraft “flanked by two CN-235 aircraft that were not in formation” violated Greek national air space nine times.

Noteworthy, two Turkish jets were armed.

It’s not clear where the violations took place but according to the Greek media the TuAF jets were chased by HAF interceptors in all cases.
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plawolf

plawolf

Lieutenant General
Equation said:
Well...it may seems that way, since North Korea doesn't have that many cars on the road therefore an accident is rare.
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You don't need other cars to have an accident on the road. If anything, the lack of other cars might be a contributing factor to an accident if drivers become complacent and/or simply are not used to sharing the road with others.

But the main reason I doubt it was an execution is because chubby Kim hasn't exactly been shy about executing people, and in fact positively goes out of his way to make executions as public and memorable as possible.

He kills people as much to send a message to the rest as to kill the person in question, and make each into a example of what happens of people cross him.

As such, it doesn't fit his usual pattern to lie and cover up an execution. He would be boasting of it instead.

It could be a simply accident, or even signs of a power struggle or even assassination. I think all of those are far more likely than an execution.

But until we have some actual evidence to suggest otherwise, the best thing to do is treat it as an accident.
 
Jeff Head

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
This thread is really for major world news, but here on SD, I believe this may qualify.

Continue the discussion about it on the PLAN Carrier thread. Anyhow, big news in the confirmation.

Reuters is confirming the build of the second Chinese carrier from a Ministry of defense spokesman.

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2nd-carrier-building.jpg​

Reuters said:
BEIJING, Dec 31 (Reuters) - After months of speculation, China confirmed on Thursday it is building a second aircraft carrier to go with an existing one bought second-hand, as neighbours worry about Beijing's new assertiveness to claims in the South China Sea.

Defence Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun said the carrier had been designed in China and was being built in the port of Dalian. Foreign military analysts and Chinese media have for months published satellite images, photographs and news stories purporting to show the second carrier's development.

"China has a long coast line and a vast maritime area under our jurisdiction. To safeguard our maritime sovereignty, interests and rights is the sacred mission of the Chinese armed forces," Yang said.

The design draws on experiences from the country's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, bought from Ukraine in 1998 and refitted in China, Yang said.

Yang said the conventionally powered carrier has a displacement of 50,000 tonnes, will be able to operate the Shenyang J-15 fighter and, unlike the 60,000-tonne Liaoning, have a ski-jump take-off.

Little is known about China's aircraft carrier programme, which is a state secret.

Yang would not say when the second carrier would enter service, saying it depended on progress in the design process.

A Shanghai-based naval expert who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter said tensions in the South China Sea made the carrier particularly necessary to furthering Chinese interests.

"The U.S. has many aircraft carriers that are traveling all over the place in the South China Sea, which has caused problems for us," he said. "Having a second aircraft carrier reduces the pressure on us. It will keep us from being bullied."

China claims almost all the South China Sea, believed to have huge deposits of oil and gas, through which about $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year, and has been building up military facilities like runways on the islands it controls.

Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims.

China says it has no hostile intent and wants to manage the dispute through bilateral talks with the other claimants. Yang also announced the defence ministry had just set up a new hotline with Vietnam, as it seeks to manage the tensions.

But Beijing has been involved in a diplomatic spat with Washington too over ship and aircraft patrols in the region.

Asked whether China was thinking of a third carrier, Yang said that "relevant authorities" would take various factors into consideration about future carrier plans.

The Pentagon, in a report earlier this year, said Beijing could build multiple aircraft carriers over the next 15 years.

Taiwan's Defence Ministry said in September China was building two aircraft carriers that would be the same size as the Liaoning.

Successfully operating the Liaoning is the first step in what state media and some military experts believe will be the deployment of domestically built carriers by 2020.

The Liaoning has taken part in military exercises, including in the South China Sea, but is not yet fully operational.

Last week, the military said the Liaoning had made a "key breakthrough" in shifting from the testing phase to being able to operate ship-borne aircraft, as the country's navy chief paid a visit.
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plawolf

plawolf

Lieutenant General
Massive fire in Dubai at the Address Hotel skyscraper.

Still unclear what caused it and what the status is now, but the flames looked massive, and eye witnesses claimed it took hold very quickly.

More than little suspicious in my book, since modern skyscrapers are all supposed to have advanced automated fire suppression systems.
 
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